


a flaw in my code

by corvuspicapica, MartinusMiraculorum



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Discussions of Terrorism, F/F, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Inquisitor Barriss Offee, More or Less Canon-Compliant, Non-Linear Narrative, Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior, PTSD, Palpatine should probably be his own warning, The Legacy of the Clone Wars, Torture, Umbara (Star Wars), but there's also a lot of trauma, there's a happy ending in here somewhere. i promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:02:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24239977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvuspicapica/pseuds/corvuspicapica, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MartinusMiraculorum/pseuds/MartinusMiraculorum
Summary: Darkness begets darkness. Light begets light.(barriss offee and ahsoka tano, from umbara to empire's end)
Relationships: Barriss Offee/Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 23
Kudos: 44





	1. Prologue: Abyss - Nur, 14 BBY

**Author's Note:**

> Opening chapter is set a few months before the events of Jedi: Fallen Order and thus contains minor spoilers.

This deep in the fortress, you could always hear the screams.

The interrogation chamber might be the most heavily guarded area of the Fortress Inquisitorius, but what could and did escape were the sounds of sentients in agony. The red sheen of the organic matter-disintegrating ray shields, sealing the rows of cells lining overlapping balconies, provided the only light this deep in the prison wing. Apart, that was, from the indirect glow of the churning molten rock oozing from the core of the moon, hardening as it cooled, only to be reabsorbed in the next wave of magma that boiled up, while its thermal energy was captured by enormous generators to power the massive underwater complex. 

There was probably a metaphor there, the First Sister mused. 

Years...a lifetime ago, she corrected, the screams would have all she could focus on until some repetitive task occupied her attention or she nearly scratched through the synthleather encasing her wrists with her bare fingernails, shredding her dark gloves in the process. She’d left that behind with _Her_...most of the time, at least. 

_You are the First Sister. It is your name and your calling. You stand as the first line of defence between the citizens of the Empire and the violent calamity of the Jedi remnants._

_They will join you, or they will die._

_And there will be peace, and order, and the galaxy will finally rest._

Another shriek of agony, probably from the throat of a humanoid male, split the air. It rattled around the prison block, past the empty cells, past the unflappable guards in their glistening white armor, until it was swallowed by the sound of the roiling hell of the gaping wounds in the crust of the ocean-covered moon the star-charts called Nur. 

_There will be peace._

_The galaxy will rest_.

Perhaps, the First Sister thought, allowing herself a brief instant of pity while the attention of the others was elsewhere, she might be able to rest too. 

She strode forward with renewed purpose, the echoing slap of her boots striking durasteel joining the intermittent screams, the faint buzzing of the ray shields, the dull rumble of molten rock, and her own steady breath through the filters of her mask.

She could scarcely remember what it was like to see outside her own chambers without the dull red filter that blanketed her vision. It might have been unnerving once, but now she found it a comfort, a shield. 

Her shield. 

_I am the mask. I am what they see. I am the First Sister._

_I will lift the mask again when there is peace._

The mantra was not as comforting as it had been five years ago, a rogue and unwelcome voice whispered in her mind. She crushed it just as quickly as it came. 

The First Sister carried on, past security station and automated weapons, past the turbolift platform and the retractable walkways above the gaping chasm near the core of the fortress. She gave no thought to falling. The prospect could hardly frighten her at this point. Were the durasteel railings and walkways to fail and send her plummeting into the abyss, she would accept it as she accepted everything else in this half-life of hers, this waking nightmare she occupied by her own volition. 

_For your crimes_. The voice was familiar this time, and she shivered. 

Another scream, this one accompanied by the begging of the damned. The door opened for her as she approached. The chamber she entered was lit from below, bathed in yellow-orange light, with the exception of two brilliant white spotlights that seemed to pin the occupant of the interrogation chair in place.

The only others present were two stormtroopers, standing still as statues flanking the doors, And, of course, _him_. Clad in a high-collared uniform of black plasteel and synthleather, the cogs of the Imperial war machine emblazoned on his pauldrons, the Grand Inquisitor turned to her as she approached, and recognition flashed in the Pau’an’s acid yellow eyes. “First Sister,” he intoned with his usual pomposity. 

In her irritation, she allowed herself to remember that her own actions had led this creature of Lord Vader’s to the leadership of the Imperial Inquisitors, the highest ranking non-human in the Imperial hierarchy, so far as was publicly known. The First Sister was equally alien in the eyes of her masters; indeed there was no unit in the Empire that held as many non-humans as theirs, the legacy of the diverse Order that so many of them had been drawn from. She kept her own species a secret behind her hooded mask and flexible black body armor, unlike the man in front of her. The Grand Inquisitor revelled in displaying his red-lined grey skin and the distinct facial markings that cut below and above his eyes, perhaps making up for the mask he was forced to hide behind in his previous life. As a Temple Guard of the Jedi Order, he had lived a life of communal anonymity. Small wonder he valued being seen for the being he was, even with the stigma attached. 

“Grand Inquisitor,” she replied tonelessly. 

“I was not expecting your return so soon,” the taller being said. “Were you successful?”

“The cell on Nam Choris is destroyed, dead to a man. Their leader--their leader was no Jedi. A touch of force sensitivity, perhaps. Even the Order would have passed xem over for more promising candidates. We suffered no losses.”

The Pau’an measured her with his molten gaze. Technically, that kind of judgement was not hers to make - their standing orders were to bring force sensitives back to Nur, alive were it at all possible. There they were broken, and judged, and most were summarily executed, their corpses cast into the searing maw at the center of their dojo. It had been some time since one had been chosen to join their ranks. Either by attrition or growing wise to the danger, most of the hundred or so Jedi and padawans that were unaccounted for after the Purge had been dealt with or not heard of in some time. There were surely more, and like vermin they could spread their teachings to impressionable younglings, along with their habit for causing collateral damage. Their students might have served the Empire but chose instead to die with their masters, many of them little more than glorified padawans themselves, ignorant acolytes of a dead order. 

“Yes, I’m sure your reasoning was sound, First Sister. Good work on Nam Choris.” He glanced back at the being in the chair, as if he had forgotten about him entirely during the Sister’s debriefing. “I hate to ask this of you so soon after your return, but our Master demands an audience, and this,” he glanced down at a datapad, “Vidar Beren is surprisingly well informed.” The tone of his voice belied the regret implied in his words. “Most importantly, he has personally encountered the current holder of the codename Fulcrum.”

 _That_ did cause her to raise an eyebrow, though such a movement was of course imperceptible beneath her mask. Perhaps her surprise showed through the Force, as the corner of the Inquisitor’s thin lips pulled upwards in a satisfied smile. “Yes, I thought that would get your attention.”

 _Of course it would_ , the First Sister thought. They had only been trying to track down the current Fulcrum for just over three years, with all the more urgency because there were reports that this one might be more than simply an essential operative of the rebellion threatening to tear apart the peace and security that the Empire promised. That Fulcrum might themselves be a survivor of the Purge, now orchestrating death and disorder on the former Republic itself. 

_There will be peace_ , the First Sister reminded herself. But _only_ if these Rebels were dealt with. Only if the last of the Jedi were no longer at large.

A hundred deaths today could spare billions in the coming years. 

“Are you close?” The First Sister asked, returning to the task at hand, distasteful though it was.

The Grand Inquisitor shrugged. “Another hour or so and I would have him, I expect. Alas, Lord Vader expects my prompt attention.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “But perhaps you might offer a different kind of persuasion, Sister.”

“Perhaps,” she allowed. She certainly had a different manner than the man before her. She glanced up. “Are the recorders off?” 

The Pau’an nodded. “The system security holograms, at least. You know as well as I do the risks of recording such...events in official databanks. And with a prize like Fulcrum...” he trailed off, his meaning clear. "In any case, TK-1456 and TK-2676,” he said, gesturing back to the silent sentinels, “have their audio recorders running. You will, of course, keep the local holocams running. You might extract the name of Fulcrum at the very end, but I _caught_ him, and I intend the record to show it once we prepare our report. And to the victor...go the spoils.”

“I understand,” the First Sister said, barely holding back a sigh of impatience. The prestige and power games of the Inquisitors held little interest to her. As one of the founding members of the Inquisitorius, her position was assured so long as she stayed breathing. It was the newer of her siblings that jockeyed for the favour of the Grand Inquisitor and Lord Vader. 

“Good. I leave this to you, then. I expect to hear from you as soon as you have the name. I will grant you the honor of accompanying me on the hunt, in recognition for your service, should you be successful.”

She nodded in agreement. Such an offer was not exactly generous, but nor was it expected.

She stood in silence as the Grand Inquisitor departed. The occupant of the chair was awoken by her mental slap, and stared apprehensively at his new tormentor.

She never did like this part. It brought back flashes of another captive, whose blue eyes stared back accusingly from her tattooed green face. 

_She’s gone_ , the First Sister reminded herself. _Her and her foolish pupil. Dead with the rest of them_. 

With a flick of the wrist, the electricity surged, and the screams of Vidar Beren, former Jedi youngling, shortly followed. 

Just under an hour later, she had her answer.

“The name,” the First Sister said, almost with disinterest, looking at the irregular pattern of the synthleather on the top of her right glove. 

“I don’t _know_!” the man - _boy_ , really -croaked weakly, through the haze of a near-lethal cocktail of drugs and neurochemicals. “I’ve told you over and over, she never said! Please--I can’t _do_ this...”

 _She_? The First Sister thought. She elected not to point out that the gender of Fulcrum was in fact new information. _Let's see what else we can get before he slips away._

“Human?” she asked.

“No…” Beren slurred. She could feel his life flickering like a candle in the wind in the currents of the Force, his body reaching a point of irrevocable exhaustion. “She--she wore a hood but...she had _horns_.”

 _Horns? Interesting. A Devaronian perhaps?_ A female Devaronian was among the Jedi padawans unaccounted for, though the name escaped her at the moment.” _Altis? Aitis? Something like that_. It would be in the records. She'd extracted the detail that Fulcrum had at least one lightsaber hanging from their belt about twenty minutes prior, confirming her suspicions. Unfortunately, Beren had passed out moments later, and reviving him with a shot of adrenaline and the Force seemed to have worsened his condition. She would have another body to add to her count by the end of the day, of that she was certain.

“And what was her species?” she prompted, reaching out her gloved hand, laying it upon his brow and _pushing,_ damn the risks. At the same time, she softened her tone. “Vidar, I promise you, I _will_ end it. You can go to see your family, just like you asked. _All_ I need is a little bit more...and I will let you go.”

She wiped his brow almost gently, and pulled back as he took a shuddering breath to speak. “ _Tyvs_ …” he began, mentioning his partner, killed by the Grand Inquisitor’s lightsaber in the same raid where he was captured. “ _She c-called her a...to-togru..._ ”

The First Sister’s blood turned to ice. _“Togruta?”_ she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

She never got a response, save for a choked death rattle. Well, that saved her some trouble, the logistical side of her brain told her, even as it was drowned out by a roaring maelstrom of wordless fear and despair that staggered her backwards, away from the chair and its late occupant. She heard one of the troopers step forward to ask if she was alright.

_Ahsoka._

In the time it took for the name to echo through her mind, the First Sister had ignited her lightsaber and slashed through the outstretched arm of the concerned trooper.

_Ahsoka._

Her blade looped back, and struck his head off at the shoulders. He didn’t have time to scream.

 _Ahsoka_.

A pivot and a snap of her wrist and the red blade sprouting from the opposite hilt pierced the second trooper’s heart; he collapsed to the ground with a dull clatter of plasteel armor. 

_Ahsoka._

Barely even aware of what she was doing in her sheer, blinding terror, the First Sister reached out instinctively, and with a squeal of tortured metal the hidden recording device above and to the left of the interrogation chair was ripped free, and with it a substantial part of the ceiling. The tangled debris crashed to the floor, only to be swept away behind her, into the open maw of Nur. The spotlights flickered out, their electrical supply disrupted by the burst of Force energy, leaving her in darkness but for the dull orange glow coming from beneath them.

In the instant she finally stopped to breathe, to contemplate all that she had just done, it all came back to Barriss Offee.

The scream that followed was entirely in her own mind, but for all that it was no less deafening. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to a very special fic, not only because it's my first foray into Barrissoka, but because this fic is actually being co-written with my incredible wife, found at various social medias (just not this one) as corvus-pica-pica. There may also be an amv accompanying it (hint for the song in the fic title!), but no sure promises. It's gonna be a really dark one, but you can thank her for the lighter and gayer bits to come. 
> 
> Also I tried to hold mostly to the architecture of the Fortress Inquisitorius as it appears in FO but...some of it is extremely dumb, so liberties have been taken.


	2. Part I: Shadows - Into the Fire - Umbara, 20 BBY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> entering its third year, the Clone War begins its darkest chapter

Jedi Padawan Barriss Offee stood outside the hastily erected mess hall behind the 212th Attack Battalion’s defensive wall, under the shadow of the _Acclamator_ -class assault cruiser, a metal cup held in her thin fingers. She was watching the darkness with wide, angled blue eyes, her gaze slipping across the helmed and bare heads of clones moving back and forth, looking without seeing them. She took a timid sip of the bitter liquid in her cup, willing it to shake off some of the fatigue that settled over her shoulders like a heavy mantle.

Time had become unclear since she had arrived on the surface of the perpetually-darkened planet; she still had not gotten used to the lack of perceivable daylight, beyond the UV bulbs employed in the base camp the Republic forces currently occupied. Even with a regimented schedule in place from the moment she landed, time had begun to slip fuzzily around her. Her chrono informed her it was early afternoon local time, not that she could tell by looking at the perpetually twilit cloud-covered sky, still lit intermittently by flashes of laser fire and explosions. The orbital battle was far from over. 

“Hey.” 

A voice at her shoulder made her start, slopping some of the burning liquid over her fingers. Wide-eyed, she looked towards the voice, seeing her dearest friend with a hand half raised, as if she were going to touch her shoulder before Barriss had jumped. 

“Oh, Ahsoka.” She said sheepishly, shuffling her cup so she could discreetly wipe her hand on the dark robes she wore. “S-sorry…”

“No worries.” The Togruta offered her a warm smile; the oppressive mantle eased slightly on Barriss’s mind. “I thought you might want some company.” 

Barriss nodded, offering a small smile. “Yes. I think I would, i-if you don’t mind?” She looked at her hands, shifting her sleeve to cover the slight burn on her hand. She was certain the angry blush would fade in a bit, but knew Ahsoka would worry regardless. 

“Nope! Let’s get something to eat--I’m _starving_. That was a hell of a battle up there.” Ahsoka gently took Barriss’s arm, giving her a tug back into the mess hall. 

The Mirialan followed her quietly, adjusting her caf in her grip so she wouldn’t spill more of the hot liquid. “Did you get in just now?” She asked, queuing behind her. Their Jedi starfighters had been flying in formation when they launched, but the furball that had ensued had forced them to stick with their respective squadrons. Barriss’ wave had landed several hours ago, while Oddball’s flight, to which Ahsoka was assigned, had been called upon for additional ground support in the first stages of the invasion.

“About 20 minutes ago--I just got done getting cleaned up. I’m so beat.” Ahsoka stretched, her back creaking with the movement. “I wanted to go in with the 501st, but Anakin volunteered me for fighter escort.” She shrugged, sighing. “At least I get a rest now instead of being out in the field, right?” Another smile crossed her lips as she looked back to Barriss.

The older padawan couldn’t help but smile back, in spite of herself. Ahsoka’s tenacious grasp of optimism, even in a dark place like Umbara, never failed to warm Barriss’ heart. 

“You ought to. Or, as well as anyone can sleep here.” Barriss replied, mutely shaking her head when offered a tray by her companion.

Ahsoka began looking over the meal offerings as they walked. “It’s eerie here, for sure...” The decidedly carnivorous Togruta accepted a plate of meat and protein-heavy rations from one of the clones working the mess. Barriss recognized him as one of Kenobi’s battalion, and greeted him with a little wave. 

“Sir. You eaten yet?” He asked, giving her a skeptical, but gently teasing look. 

“Just caf right now. My stomach’s been a bit uneasy since we landed.” She admitted, a little sheepish. She thought she had been more sneaky, but clearly the clones were onto her, even after only a few hours. 

“Caf’ll make your stomach all acid, commander.” He chided gently, then gave her a slight smile. “You’re not the only one with a tender belly today. 501st’s cooks did a number on a lot of us back on the ship.”  
  
Ahsoka snorted at the jab, hiding a grin.  
  
“All the same--” The clone handed a small, light ration of carbs to Ahsoka. “--just in case.” He winked to Barriss, then turned back to his work; more clones had begun milling around and lining up for a hard earned meal. Some of their armor was streaked with carbon scoring and covered in mud - they must have been some of the first on the ground, back for a reprieve before the next phase of the offensive was launched.

Barriss hurried on after Ahsoka, who now carried the extra ration on her tray. They moved through the drinks station, where Barriss reupped her caf, then onto the final checkpoint in the ration queue. Ahsoka eased her pace to match Barriss’s.

“Still not eating?” Ahsoka asked, quietly as they sat down. 

“I ate some last night, before we launched.” Barriss countered, a little defensive. “I just...don’t have much appetite. You know I can’t sleep before a battle.” 

Ahsoka gave her a look, then set the light ration in front of her comrade. “Still gotta try and eat, Barriss. You can’t help anyone on caf and spite alone.” A sharp grin tugged the corner of Ahsoka’s lips.

Barriss gave her a slight scowl, but there was no real malice behind it. “I did pretty well on that before you and were assigned together…”

“Uh-huh. Well--” Ahsoka picked up the lighter ration bar, smearing a thick, yellow paste from a packet sitting next to her own food. “--just because you _can_ doesn’t mean you _should._ ” 

Barriss’s eyes followed Ahsoka’s movements. She took another sip of the caf, wincing a little at the acrid taste. “Funny thing for you to say.” 

Ahsoka snorted, then put the now-augmented block on the plate, sliding it over to Barriss. “Maybe. But you still gotta eat, and I’d be pretty broken up if you let this go to waste.” 

The initially rather unappealing ration on her plate had been transformed into a makeshift sandwich, with the yellow paste oozing out the sides with a few flecks of plant-protein visible, and a healthy dose of red hot-sauce.

Barriss’s stomach growled, loud enough that Ahsoka giggled, giving her a teasing smile. 

“...Alright, fine.” The Mirialan felt her face burning a little; betrayed by her own stomach! She picked it up gingerly, and took a small bite; the taste was rich and creamy, with a hint of burn. It made her mind and body quiet for the first time in several hours, relishing the comforting flavors in the dark uncertainty of Umbara’s warzone. 

“Good?” Ahsoka asked, watching Barriss take another, larger bite. 

The sustenance was enough to nearly make the older padawan cry, but she didn’t. She was too old for such things. 

Instead, she nodded, chewing slowly, trying to make the food last as long as she could. 

“Good.” Ahsoka gave her a warm smile, then started on her own portions. 

Much to the intense dismay of Barriss, her breakfast? lunch? was cut short by the unmistakable whine of low aerial artillery overhead, landing some distance away from where they were sat, but near enough to the camp that counting the seconds between the whine and the sound of the blast was futile. She, Ahsoka, and the clones at the tables stared mutely out the mess hall’s entrance, silent for the span of three heartbeats. 

Ahsoka was the first to move, wadding up the last of her food and wedging it in her mouth with a swig of caf before she grabbed her tray, vaulting over the bench and running for the door.  
  
Barriss, only slightly more composed, looked at the last bite of her sandwich before eating it whole, following her comrade. The clones began to stir behind her as she exited the tent, grabbing Ahsoka’s shoulder as she fought to swallow the last of her breakfast. 

“We gotta get to HQ. Do you have your wrist com on?”

“Y-yeah.” She coughed, checking to see if any lights were blinking on it. A flashing amber glare caught her gaze, three long beats. “I...think I have new orders.” Barriss’s eyes met Ahsoka’s. “What about you?”

More clones began running out of the mess, heading off in different directions; an angry, red glow was visible on the far edge of camp, growing in brightness. Barriss noted, with a pang of panic, that it was the same area of camp as the medical facilities, where she had expected to be stationed. 

The togruta swatted her pockets, looking for her wrist com, then slapping it onto her bracer. It flashed the same amber signal. 

“Same, let’s get going!”  
  
\---

GAR ORDER REPORT: 

OFFEE, BARRISS, CMR. [JEDI]

ORDER ASSIGNMENT: 

DEPLOY OFFEE TO COORDINATES 54-11-28 WITH DETACHMENT OF TROOPERS [212; SQUAD 52] AND TANO, AHSOKA CMR. 

ERECT FIELD HOSPITAL AT GIVEN COORDINATES FOR MEDICAL EVALUATION OF TROOPERS WOUNDED IN ANTICIPATED BATTLE ON CORONA PLAIN; ESTABLISH PERIMETER AND SAFE COVER FOR MEDICAL EVACUATION TO BASE ONE.

SEE ATTACHED MANIFEST FOR EQUIPMENT AND VEHICULAR TRANSPORT.

\---

GAR ORDER REPORT:

TANO, AHSOKA, CMR. [JEDI]

ORDER ASSIGNMENT: 

DEPLOY TANO TO COORDINATES 54-11-28 WITH DETACHMENT OF TROOPERS [212; SQUAD 52] AND OFFEE, BARRISS CMR.

ERECT FIELD HOSPITAL AT GIVEN COORDINATES FOR MEDICAL EVALUATION OF TROOPERS WOUNDED IN ANTICIPATED BATTLE ON CORONA PLAIN; ESTABLISH PERIMETER AND SAFE COVER FOR MEDICAL EVACUATION TO BASE ONE.

SEE ATTACHED MANIFEST FOR EQUIPMENT AND VEHICULAR TRANSPORT.

\---

** The First Night **

The first hours in the infirmary were largely uneventful, but no less tense for it. While it had been a fairly quick operation to erect and cover the half-buried structure, the unmistakable drone of aerial combat threatened overhead, mortars going off every so often in the twilit surroundings, illuminating the strange vegetation and twisted, wrecked bodies of dead clones and Umbarans killed in the initial landing, silhouetted in a glowing blast of blue-white energy, fading to the raw, red glow of scorched earth. 

The repurposed Umbaran trenches, dug at some point in the recent past and just as quickly abandoned after the Republic forces made landfall, had made an ideal setting for the field hospital, as well as their situation in a narrow gully half a klick from the staging area and encampment of the 212th that had spread out from the landing point of _Acclamator 7_ and her escorts. Hypothetically, the field hospital would be protected from long-range artillery and air strikes, as the larger camp would attract far more attention from the counter-attacking Umbaran militia. The strategy holo-tables they had all been shown had anticipated a massive Umbaran counter attack from the hills to the northwest over what was designated the Corona Plain: a three kilometer stretch of mostly flat terrain that provided intermittent but effective cover in the form of patches of the planet’s distinctive flora. The southwest corner of the plain ran just beyond the western ridge of the gully, and the field hospital would be the first point of treatment for wounded Republic defenders left behind to guard the transports and secure supply lines while General Kenobi led the bulk of the 212th in a rapid push towards the capital. 

Barriss had been desensitized to the distinct smell of blasted flesh over the course of the Clone War, but remaining in an active combat zone not as a soldier, but instead as a medic exploiting her only recently developed skills as a Force healer, was not as familiar. She felt exposed, despite the cover of earth and durasteel frames above her. 

Three clone troopers were stationed at the one entrance into the infirmary, two immediately visible through the arched opening, the third in a scouting position farther down, back towards the narrow tunnel opening up into a wider trench they had built for the purpose of moving wounded back towards the main camp. Another two had gone further into the gully with Ahsoka to establish a sentry outpost near the northern exit, which would be one access route from the battlefield to the relative safety of the field hospital. The low ridges to either side afforded a certain amount of concealment in the darkened landscape, but Barriss could still make out the white, gleaming curves of the clones’ helmets in the dim light. 

She gave her head a little shake, then returned to her rounds, checking the clones who had remained here in the infirmary until they had recovered sufficiently to be transported safely back to the main camp. Staring into the dark would only give her an eye ache, and she needed her senses sharp, not dulled by something so foolish.

There were ten bunks, filled currently with three wounded, survivors of an ambush of a reconnaissance patrol by the well-equipped planetary militia. One wore the yellow markings of the 212th, but the others still wore unpainted armor of “shinies,” as she had heard them called. The beds had been at nearly full capacity only an hour after they’d completed construction, but they had managed to establish a transport chain with great efficiency. This was in no small part due to both her and Ahsoka’s ingenuity in _requisitioning_ a load lifter repulsor vehicle, she reminded herself with a small note of pride. Still, if the expected Umbaran counterattack came, they might quickly have to expand their capacity from the supplies that remained.

Barriss’s eyes flickered over the first patient, a ‘shiny’ with two bad leg injuries; they had been able to stabilize his bleeding for now, but it would likely take reconstruction and a bacta soak to see him walking again. He was sleeping, somewhat fitfully, but his vitals were stable; an improvement since the last check in two hours ago. 

“How’s he doing, Commander?” The Jedi turned towards the neighboring bunk; another clone leaned slightly over the edge, speaking low. He fixed her with a pained, concerned look. 

Barriss pulled up the next clone’s charts on her datapad. “CT-15772? He’s improving, but we’ll need to send him back to camp as soon as we get the go-ahead.” She replied in a soft, gentle voice; she’d been told by the Temple healers that patients found it calming. Her eyes fell on the birth number for the anxious shiny she spoke to. “You’re...CT-1577...1?” 

The clone leaned back onto his bunk with a wince; his head was bandaged tightly around the left side, and his shoulder had been badly mangled and burned by an Umbaran incendiary grenade. His chart indicated he had also been suffering from nerve pain in the same arm, and had previously not been able to move the third or fourth finger on his left hand. 

“Y-yeah, Ticks. He’s...my batch brother, s-sir. We were just deployed a few weeks...b-before we landed here.” His eye fogged with pain as he tried to settle back into a comfortable position. 

Barriss set her datapad aside, catching his good shoulder and left side, stabilizing him. She felt his life echo in the Living Force, shuddering around the hot ball of pain in his body. Slowly, she helped him lay flat, carefully easing some of the throbbing around his shoulder and deeper in his chest and spine; short of a full bacta immersion, there was little more she could do besides ease his pain, and hope he could rest. 

“Easy...is this your first battle, CT-15771?” She asked, slowly straightening and watching his face. The haze of pain had subsided, replaced with a haunted fatigue. 

“Y-yeah...yeah. No one...told us it would be like this.” His voice faded to a hoarse whisper as he closed his eyes. He winced as he tried flexing his left hand, with no luck; his fingers barely moved this time. 

“No.” Barriss agreed softly, recording the progress on the datapad. “Most...are not like this.” She couldn’t fathom what comfort this might give him, but she hoped it was of any meaningful amount. 

“I….is it yours too, s-sir?” CT-15771 asked, looking back up at her as she checked his IV. 

“No...I have seen many before this one.” She looked back at him after ensuring he was receiving an adequate dose of painkillers. Barriss pointedly decided to omit that she had (just barely) survived the battle that began this blasted war. 

“Heh...y-you must be...pretty t-tough...then, huh?” He laughed a little, a weak, but still hopeful sound; unusual in a trench. 

“One of the toughest you’ll ever see, Tagger!” Ahsoka’s cheerful voice broke the heavy air of the infirmary as she entered, nearly knocking over a cart loaded with fluids. She gave the clone a sharp grin, her pointed canines visible. 

Barriss, in spite of herself, blushed under the diamond tattoos on her face. “I-I…” 

CT-15771 - Tagger, apparently; she envied how quickly her friend picked these things up - looked from Ahsoka to Barriss and back, a glimmer of mirth on his tired, marred face. Another weak laugh escaped his lips with a slight wince.  
  
“You’ll have to ask about it when this is all over, right Barriss?” Ahsoka flashed her another grin.  
  
She couldn’t say she approved of the younger padawan’s bedside manner, but the small part of Barriss’s psyche that was not flatlining over the grin told her that, statistically, laughter was known to greatly improve patients’ recovery. 

She couldn’t be sure that this was applicable here, but, again, she was not running at the fullest capacity for the moment. 

“G-guess so, sir,” Tagger replied, giving both Jedi a bemused look; the painkillers seemed to be taking effect, much to Barriss’s relief. She drifted past Ahsoka to the third clone, pulling up his chart and willing her heartbeat to slow back to a more reasonable pace, breathing slowly through her nose. 

The clone on the bunk gave her a half-asleep nod, yawning. “Commander Offee, Commander Tano.” His arm was tightly bandaged to his chest, and his leg on the same side showed signs of severe blaster damage; his chart indicated this was one of several tours he had seen, including previous stints on Arkanis and Christophsis. 

“How are you feeling, CT-3326...Edge, was it?” Barriss asked, looking up from the datapad. 

“Yessir...uh, stiff, a little fuzzy from the painkillers, but that’s pretty usual.” He yawned again, wincing as it jostled the graze on his cheek. “More tired though...is that normal? Here, I mean?”

Barriss recorded the notes as she spoke, “Some troopers and Jedi have reported that the reduced daylight is affecting their fatigue, even after only a night on the planet. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were feeling this a bit more with your injuries.”  
  
He nodded, then looked a bit sheepish. “Could...you help me fix my pillow then, sir? So I can try and get a bit more sleep?”

A soft laugh escaped Barriss’s lips. “Of course.” She stooped a bit, helping him readjust to a better position. 

“Thanks, Commander.” He gave her a relieved, quiet smile. “See you in a few hours?”  
  
“Of course. Get some rest, CT-3...Edge.” A gentle smile left her lips before turning around to return the datapad and record general updates.  
  
Puzzled, she noticed Ahsoka had vanished from the infirmary. Had she already left to check on their sentries? A slight ping of anxiety at her departure twisted at Barriss’s insides, causing her slowly shaking fingers to hesitate above the keys on the datapad. 

_She’s coming back, Barriss. You know that. She’s not gone forever._ She chided herself, swallowing slowly and forcing herself to finish recording her notes. Maybe she might even get some rest before she collapsed from exhaustion.

\---

“Barriss--Barriss! You gotta wake up now.” A hand gently shook her shoulder.

The Mirialan’s eyes snapped open, wild and searching. Her hand immediately clawed for the lightsaber hidden in the bunk frame. 

“Hey! Easy…” Ahsoka’s face came into focus in the dim light, her hand gently intercepting Barriss’s attempts to find her weapon. “You just dozed off.” 

Panic was immediately replaced by embarrassment. Cautiously, Barriss sat up, fixing the snug hood that covered her head, tucking her stray locks back into its soft, dark fabric. “What time is it?” She asked, looking around the small room for any sign of daylight before remembering where they were. She’d just been resting her eyes for a minute, she swore.

“Patch just started his shift, so it’s only been about an hour.” Ahsoka answered, leaning back on the crate of supplies she was sitting on. “I just got back a little while ago.” She took Barriss’s hand, gently pressing a cup of caf into the palm. 

Barriss swallowed, hard, fighting back a slight blush. “Thanks, Ahsoka.” Her voice was soft, a little sheepish. Even with Ahsoka being about two years younger than her, the Togruta was one of the few people that made her feel _looked after_ \--in more than just the general sense. It made it all the harder to let go of the feelings of warmth and longing that Barriss had been experiencing in her company as of late. That, and Ahsoka’s easy smile and sharp humor…

Her hands shook a little as she forced herself to take a long sip of caf, in a futile effort to quell the sudden wave of emotions. She was too old for this nonsense. 

**The Second Night**

Barriss had just barely settled into her bunk when she heard the first shots echo through the night.

At first she wasn’t entirely clear whether she was awake or dreaming; she’d been in so many battles to this point that her nights were frequently filled with the sounds and sights of clones, droids, and Jedi fighting and dying in a kaleidoscopic haze of energy weapons and destruction. Meditation before she slept could alleviate the problem somewhat, but an active warzone was a poor environment to keep up her routine. 

She could recall little but nearly collapsing after Ahsoka finally convinced her to take another short rest. 

_You need to sleep, Barriss. Properly this time._

_Ahsoka…_

_You’ll be fine, I promise. Look, I’ll even trade shifts with one of the others, so I’m right here. I’ll keep you safe._

For a minute, she thought she was caught in another dream, or nightmare, or something in between, as to an extent this entire _war_ was an endless nightmare. 

It wasn’t until she heard the slightly-higher frequency of Ahsoka’s shoto igniting that she knew for sure. 

Barriss was up in a moment, lightsaber at her belt but not drawn, but by the time she was out of the bunk room adjacent to the infirmary she could hear screams and her fellow padawan shouting orders. Hurrying past the convalescent occupants of the infirmary cots with barely a glance and no answer to their shouted questions, she rounded a corner, following the sound of Ahsoka’s voice. 

Her eyes took a second to adjust as she finally found her way through the mist clinging to the damp earth, lit eerily by the red and purples of Umbara’s fluorescent plant life, growing on either side of the gully. Turning a corner, she came upon two clones, their yellow-striped armor spattered with what she first thought was mud. Coming closer, she saw they were listening intently to Ahsoka’s orders, the Togruta padawan commanding their full attention, despite her small stature and barely sixteen years of age. 

Barriss vaguely registered the scent of burned flesh amidst the damp, earthy smells that she had come to associate with this planet, but could see no obvious wounds on the three beings in front of her.

“We don’t know how many of them there are,” Ahsoka was saying, her eyes ablaze with purpose.

“But sir, we’re spread too thin,” one of the clones protested.

“I know, Knox…” the togruta wiped a weary hand over her face, then turned sharply to the second clone. “Rush, any luck getting communications back up?”

“Negative, sir. There’s some sort of interference on this blasted planet we haven’t figured out yet. We’re too exposed out here.”

Ahsoka finally caught sight of Barriss and gently pushed past the clone she had called Knox. “Barriss!”

The Mirialan was so dazed she barely registered the feeling of Ahsoka’s warm hand on hers. “Ahsoka, I heard blaster fire--and what’s this about insurgents?”

“A couple of the locals took out two of the sentries we set up near the mouth of the gully, and tried to break into the defensive perimeter,” Rush explained. “They didn’t get very far.” He gestured towards the ground, and as Knox stepped away, Barriss finally saw the fallen grey-skinned Umbaran, smoke still rising from at least two blaster wounds. Something about the body was...different, but she couldn’t dwell on that now. 

“Barriss, you’ve always been better at sensing than me,” Ahsoka said, and the intensity in her gaze nearly took the older padawan’s breath away. “I _think_ there are more out there, but I’m not sure. Can you use the Force to do a scan?”

“I don’t--” Barriss began. She took a deep breath and blinked slowly. “Alright, I’ll do it.”

She opened her mind to the energy of the universe around her, wincing as she felt the distant echoes of death and suffering across the entire world and the skies above it. Focusing her mind, she pulled back, trying to distinguish the Force signatures in the immediate area. Ahsoka was a beacon in the Force, an almost tangible warmth streaming off her that sent shivers down Barriss’ spine. The two clones were different, but familiar. Not only visually, but also in the ebbs and flows of the Living Force, they were not quite identical, even if they might seem so at a glance. Her mind located Patch and the three patients in the infirmary tents, a few other clones scattered around the hospital and the defensive perimeter - five, maybe six troopers stood out.

And beyond them…

It _wasn’t_ the Force signature that gave them away, though she could sense the differences. It was the single purpose that unified unfamiliar and alien minds.

And it was getting closer.

 _“They’re coming!”_ she hissed. Closing her eyes for a second, she pointed off to the north, in the direction of a burning patch of the horizon where she dimly recalled their sentry post had been located. “Ten...maybe fifteen, I don’t know.”

“You’re sure?” Ahsoka asked, her nostrils flaring in anticipation of what was to come.

Barriss felt a slight flash of annoyance at being questioned, but nodded, her hand reaching for her own lightsaber. “Certain.”

None of them said the obvious. Even the low count had them evenly matched, and if her higher estimate was right…

Ahsoka barked something she didn't catch, and then she and the two clones were up and over the top. Barriss had barely taken a step to follow when Knox toppled back into the trench, some sort of edged weapon buried in his throat. There was an unmistakable cry of rage from a clone - in Mando’a, not basic - and the sharp _snap-hiss_ as a lightsaber ignited was followed by a muffled cry of pain as Ahsoka’s blade struck home. 

Barriss looked down at the fallen trooper, flat on his back and unmoving. Blood, his own this time, was running in rivulets down his armor from his ruined throat. His presence in the Force flickered, then went out. 

_Move, damn it_ , she shouted at herself. Or maybe she said it aloud, because Ahsoka had ducked back above the parapet. “Barriss, we’ll hold them here - I need you to get back to the tents, we think they are trying to circle around.”

Being given a task finally broke through the haze of unreality she’d been moving through since she’d awoken. “Got it...are you sure?”

“ _Go!_ ” Ahsoka shouted, and then the air lit up with the swirl of two emerald blades as they intercepted yellow-green bolts of charged particles.

As if on cue, she felt more than heard an explosion back near the infirmary, and an accompanying cacophony of blaster fire. As she ran, she heard Ahsoka trill a curse. “It’s a diversion, fall back!”

She ran faster. 

\---

In accordance with GAR practice, the first step in establishing a battlefield medical outpost was to create a safe location for the treatment and recuperation of the wounded. On planets where conditions allowed it, the main infirmary was to be dug into the ground, protected from above and to the flanks by walls of earth, as well as the materials of the prefabricated structures. In this case, the abandoned Umbaran trenches had made this process much less time-consuming.

As Barriss reached the outlet of the main trench, she saw that these measures had not been enough. 

Patch and another of the clone medics was pushed up against the exposed wall of the infirmary unit. In their hands were weapons they were definitely not issued with, blasting away seemingly at random-- _into_ the infirmary. 

At first, Barriss didn’t understand what was happening. _There are wounded in there!_ What in the Force were the clones _doing_?

Then a spray of yellow green bolts cut straight through their flimsy cover and the clone - Wex, she thought - was blasted backwards, his armor aflame from at least three hits. Barriss ignited her lightsaber and rushed forward to where he had been crouched. More charged particle beams came from inside the darkened infirmary, and she effortlessly deflected them down into the boggy floor of the trench, unwilling to risk hitting her own men by redirecting them in the direction of her attackers. There was too much going on for her to be sure if they were still alive, but as long as there was a _chance._.. 

Patch hobbled over to her, still firing. “They blew the roof in, Commander! Everybody still alive in there is a hostile. I tried to hold them off but they kept coming.” He fired another spray out of shots from his borrowed rifle, to no obvious effect.

Barriss took a deep breath, and let out her fear on the exhale. “You’ve done well, Patch,” she said, pivoting to fend off another volley from within the infirmary. “I’ll take it from here.”

Lightsaber extended in the Shien guard stance, Barriss pushed into the ruined building, now lit only by burning rubble and a few of the surviving overhead lights that flickered and died just like the fallen clones. Despite the poor visibility, she had identified two shooters - both Umbarans, neither obviously armored - when the Force gave her a sharp warning. 

A dark blur leapt from the shadows to her right side, and she side-stepped what might have been a lethal attack, again with some sort of bladed weapon, that missed her stomach by a few centimeters. Shifting her weight, she instinctively went for a disarm, and her lightsaber sheared through first the blade and then the forearm of its wielder - she let out a scream of pain that Barriss barely heard as she threw her saber up to block another volley from the blaster-wielding Umbarans. Blue bolts sizzled past from behind her and with a muffled cry one of the shooters went down in a heap. 

The other scrambled away, climbing up the mass of twisted earth and metal that Barriss only then recognized as the collapsed ceiling and earthen embankment that had been supposed to protect the injured clones.

It was now their tomb.

Barriss hurried on recklessly, using the Force to carry her up and out of the infirmary in a single bound. Almost immediately she found herself surrounded in the misty near-dark - at least five or six hostile minds within three meters of her position - and began weaving her blade in a defensive Soresu pattern that would make Master Kenobi proud. 

But the enemy kept coming. Stray bolts - some from captured clone weapons - became secondary concerns to the shadows that lunged at her, too fast for her eyes to track. Reaching out with her thoughts, finding the life forms around her, Barriss closed her eyes, and let her instincts and the will of the Force guide her as little more than an instrument of its power. There was not so much as a thought as her blade deflected charged particle beams back at their source, as she ducked and weaved and only broke from her defensive stance with precise and deadly strikes that only registered because of the slight tug of resistance of a lightsaber cutting through solid matter. Her arms rose and fell, she pivoted and ducked and spun, all of it directed by the energy that flowed through her limbs. 

It was _exhilarating_.

She wasn’t sure how long it was until the enemy fell silent, and she heard Ahsoka call her name. 

With a jolt, she opened her eyes. Ahsoka was trailed by a few clones she didn’t recognize - reinforcements, perhaps - but from where?

“Barriss!” the Togruta said, as if it was not the first time she had called her name. Absently, Barriss realized her ignited lightsaber was still held out in front of her, as if to fend off the darkness itself with the light of its blade. “You’re safe. They’re all down.” She held her empty hands out in front of her, palms down. 

“Ahsoka,” she said, her voice almost a squeak. She released the ignition switch of her weapon, and the blue blade of contained plasma vanished, leaving them surrounded by the eerily colored haze of the Umbaran mists. 

“That’s right, Barriss, we’re here” her friend said slowly, stepping closer, heartbreaking concern in her bright blue eyes. The other padawan glanced down, “though I’m not really sure you needed us.”

Puzzled, Barris followed her gaze. Time seemed to slow and the distant sounds of battle and the closer after-action discussions between identically-voiced men faded into a dull roar in her ears. Her eyes, unblinking, moved from one body to the next, all fallen within a semicircle no more than two meters from where she stood. Seven in all.

 _Dead_. _All of them_. Some with still-smoking blaster wounds, others with cauterized stumps where there were once limbs. One man had nearly been bisected, but his glazed eyes nonetheless seemed to bore accusingly into her very soul. 

_I did this?_

Thinking back she could hardly remember doing it. She had given into the Force, let it flow through her, and it had kept her alive, protected and strengthened her beyond the capabilities of any ordinary organic. That was _good_ , right? 

_So why doesn’t it_ feel _good?_

Why was her mouth dry, and her lungs heaving, and her stomach threatening to spill the meager sustenance Ahsoka had forced her to eat onto the wet earth? 

Why did she feel like she had just done something -- _unforgivable_?

“Barriss,” Ahsoka said again, stepping over a nearly decapitated corpse to grasp her wrists with a gentle but firm hold. “Are you okay? Were you hit?” 

“No,” she said, her eyes still traveling from corpse to corpse, surveying the organic wreckage of her... _accomplishments_. “No, I’m fine.”

Ahsoka took her by the arm. “Let’s get you out of the open. Dash,” she called, pointing over her shoulder to one of the unmarked clones that she didn’t recognize, “says we have new orders.”

Barriss nodded. Orders. Orders were good, and helpful, and made a semblance of sense of the hell of war. “Right. That sounds like a good idea. Ahsoka.” She tried to smile at her friend. Apparently it only made the Togruta more concerned.

Her eyes were drawn down again to a still-smoking body, another of those curved blades clutched in his dead hand. “What kind of weapons were they carrying?”

“Some kind of farming equipment by the looks of it,” Rush said, kicking one of the fallen with his boot. 

“ _Farming equipment?”_ Barriss said in a horrified whisper. 

The clone didn’t share her sentiments. “Sir, they killed Knox with that _farming equipment_ , and Tipper too. Don’t think these bastards weren’t serious, Commander. You did well to bring them down so quickly while we caught up.”

“No survivors among the wounded, sirs.” That was Patch, now climbing up through the caved-in infirmary unit, breathing heavily through his helmet’s voice filter. “I don’t think they knew they were hitting an aid station, probably thought we were some kind of command bunker.”

“I sure _hope_ they weren’t after an aid station,” Ahsoka said, flashing her teeth in a decidedly predatory expression. “And about half of them were armed with rifles anyway, or picked them up from the troopers they killed. They planned this.”

But all Barriss could see was that of the bodies in front of her, not a single one wore the kind of advanced body armor and performance-enhancing helmet apparatus that had been discussed in the invasion briefing she’d attended hours before she and Ahsoka had been punching through a wave of Separatist interceptors at the head of a wedge of ARC-170s, at no small cost to the two-seated clone fighters.

 _These aren’t the Umbaran militia_ , she realized. 

“There’s one alive down here,” a voice called from behind her. Pulling away roughly from Ahsoka’s grasp, she spun on her heel and slid back down the rubble into the ruined infirmary unit.

The survivor, propped up against an overturned cot and guarded by a clone medic she thought was named Trap, was familiar - it was the woman Barriss had disarmed - figuratively and literally. The Mirialan padawan found herself dropping to one knee, reaching out to shake the woman by her shoulders. “Why did you do this? Who sent you here? These men were _wounded_ , and you killed them!”

“ _Invaders_ ,” the umbaran hissed in heavily accented basic. “Our children...you killed.”

“Your _children_?” Barriss asked, horrified. 

“From the sky!” the woman cried, thrusting out the stump of her arm as if to strike the kneeling padawan. “ _From the sky_!”

The rushing was back, more deafening than ever. _The orbital bombardment must have hit a settlement_ , she thought. _We did this._

Ahsoka had joined her now - she could feel the radiant heat of the Togruta’s body in the chilly air, which was how she realized her left sleeve had been shredded, even if the green skin beneath it was unblemished.

The Togruta glowered at their prisoner. “You shouldn’t have joined the Seppies, then.” 

Barriss was taken aback, but before she could say anything, Ahsoka ordered two clones forward. “Take her back to the base, the medics there can look at her while we clean up.”

The clones roughly pulled the Umbaran woman, now hissing angrily in her own language, to her feet, and carried her out of the infirmary tent. 

“They were getting better.”

Barriss blinked. “Ahsoka?”

Her friend turned to her, the fury in her eyes softened to sorrow. “Edge and Tagger. They were getting better. We might have been able to send them back to their brothers in a couple days, maybe a week. And now…” Ahsoka trailed off, staring at the rubble that covered three of their patients. 

“At least you got them,” the Togruta said, turning to her. She grinned weakly. “That was _amazing_ , by the way. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“I...trained for these things, Ahsoka,” she said, looking at her right hand, grotesquely free of the blood of those she’d cut down. “They were farmers.”

“What?”

“Farmers,” she repeated. Ahsoka looked puzzled, so she continued. “They weren’t part of the militia. They _weren’t_ soldiers. And I…”

“They attacked us,” Ahsoka replied, a bit of fire in her voice. “They _killed_ troopers. _Maybe_ they were farmers before, but now--”

“We killed their _children_ , Ahsoka. You heard that woman.”

“She might have been lying,” the Togruta protested, though Barriss could hear the uncertainty in her voice. “It was kill or be killed, Barriss,” she said, stepping in front of the older padawan, speaking more quietly. “We didn’t have a choice.”

“It’s _always_ that way,” she said, barely above a whisper. But Ahsoka seemed to have missed the bitterness in her voice, and instead took it for agreement. 

“Come on, Dash got some orders, remember?”

They exited what was left of the infirmary.

“Alright, Dash, let’s hear it.”

Even fully armored, Barriss could see he was dejected. “We’re abandoning this outpost. The battle’s moved on, and we’re too exposed.”

“ _What_?” a voice said. Barriss was shocked to realize it was her own. 

“Sorry, Commander, but General Krell’s orders were clear. There’s something else, too. A message from General Skywalker. He’s been ordered to return to Coruscant, and he wants you with him, Commander Tano.”

Ahsoka actually pouted. “What? Why?”

“Ahsoka,” Barriss growled under her breath. “Do you remember what happened _last time_ he left you in the middle of a battle?”

Suitably chastened, the Togruta sighed. “Alright, let’s pack up what we can and get moving. Maybe we can find out how the hell those insurgents were able to get through our perimeter.”

“But...the brothers,” Patch said.

“We’ll come back for them when this is over,” Barriss found herself saying. “But Ahsoka’s right, we should hurry.” That seemed to end the argument.

Even as the flash of dueling artillery batteries lit the sky from the north, Barriss refused to look back the entire way to their main camp. 

\---

“ _Ahsoka, you are joining me on the_ Resolute _, and that is an_ order!” the holographic rendering of Anakin Skywalker thundered. 

Ahsoka’s desire to stay had only strengthened when she found out the 501st wasn’t coming back with her, but instead going into the field under the command of General Pong Krell, who even Barriss knew had a reputation for high casualty figures. Sensing her friend’s temper rising, the mirialan Jedi stepped forward. “What should _I_ do, Master Skywalker?”

Like his padawan, the Jedi Knight seemed taken aback, as if he had forgotten she was even there. “ _Well...Yularen says a Separatist battle group just jumped in to reinforce the orbital defense above the capital. We could use you in the air._ ”

Barriss hesitated. “Could I not be of more use down here, as a healer, Master?”

Anakin scratched his head. “ _Uh...sure, that sounds like a good idea. They’ll be deploying MedEvac units anyway, and there’s a_ lot _of wounded to tend to just from the initial landing, I can only imagine the losses they’ve taken in the open_ . _Why don’t you accompany them, see what you can do to help?_ ”

“Yes, Master Skywalker,” she said, punctuating her words with an elegant if shallow curtsy. 

“ _Ahsoka?”_

“ _Fine_. I’ll be there in twenty, Master.”

The holo-image vanished, and Ahsoka turned to her. “I’m sorry I have to leave. You’re...you’re going to be okay, right?”

“Of course, Ahsoka,” she replied calmly. “This is hardly my first battle.” 

There was an awkward pause as the Togruta shifted her weight, perhaps considering whether to embrace her older friend. She stayed at a distance, and Barriss felt a pang of disappointment. She reached out instead, grasping Ahsoka’s wrist. “I’ll be fine. You should go.”

“Right,” the younger padawan replied. “I’ll see you on the other side, okay?”

“Of course.”

Barriss forced herself to turn away, then suddenly found herself caught in Ahsoka’s embrace from behind. “Take care, Barriss,” she mumbled into her robes. Then she was gone, dashing out towards the landing field.

“I…” she trailed off. _I’ll miss you_ , she didn’t say. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look, an update!
> 
> I know this might cause a bit of whiplash after the opening chapter, but the idea is to weave in how Barriss (and Ahsoka) got to the point. Canonically both Barriss and Ahsoka participated in the Battle of Umbara (though their presence is only indicated by about a frame of their models piloting fighters during Tom Kane's opening narration). Given the resonance between Barriss' accusations about the Jedi order being corrupted by the war with the fall of Pong Krell, it seemed like a logical place to accelerate that part of her arc. That the Umbara arc draws heavily on influences from the Vietnam War only makes that more appropriate in our minds.
> 
> The fic is now tagged as 'Canon Compliant,' which became a big headache when trying to fit a lot of action into the stretch before Krell relieves Anakin, and the logistics of the battle. Going with the 'there's a lot we don't see' handwave here.
> 
> Basically all the clone-related scenes were written by my wife, as well as the initial cuteness. Lest you think she's a one-note writer, she's also working on some of the darkest shit in the whole fic.
> 
> In addition to being common fanon, Barriss as a Jedi healer derives from the now-Legends MedStar books by Matthew Reaves and Steve Perry (which don't fit particularly well with The Clone Wars canon, as Barriss definitely seems older than the 18 years I'm going with here). It's a part of the character that nonetheless seems to fit the reluctant warrior in the Geonosis arc. 
> 
> The Force fugue that Barriss enters is partly inspired by a similar event in Matt Stover's phenomenal novelisation of Revenge of the Sith, where Obi-Wan immerses himself almost completely in the Force to avoid being cut to pieces by Grevious' droid army on Utapau. The outcome of her experience is a little less to her liking.
> 
> Barriss makes a reference to the Padawan Lost arc at the end of Season 3, when Ahsoka is kidnapped off Felucia and ends up meeting Chewbacca because the GFFA is both enormous and insanely tiny. Or maybe it's just the Force.
> 
> A significant portion of the next chapter has already been written, so the next update shouldn't be too long in coming. Reviews are always extremely welcome!


	3. Part I: Shadows - The Cursed Earth of Umbara - 20 BBY

**The Third Night**

GAR ORDER REPORT: 

OFFEE, BARRISS, CMR. [JEDI]

ORDER ASSIGNMENT: 

DEPLOY OFFEE TO UMBARA SURFACE WITH TROOPER SQUAD [212; 52]. MEDICAL EXTRACTION REQUIRED AT COORDINATES 22-11-60. 

ASSESS CASUALTIES ON-SITE AND BEING MEDICAL EVACUATION. RETURN VIABLE WOUNDED TO ACCLAMATOR 7. DEAD AND NON-VIABLE WOUNDED ARE NOT CLEARED FOR EXTRACTION.

SEE ATTACHED MANIFEST FOR EQUIPMENT AND VEHICULAR TRANSPORT.

\---

The bitter cold air of Umbara’s lower atmosphere buffeted Barriss’s face as she leaned out of the LAAT, closely listening to the proximity beacon in the headset tucked snugly under her cowl. The dim grey-blue of the fog below made flares almost impossible to see, particularly as they would be further obscured by the glowing red and white flora that punctuated the endless swathes of dark terra firma below. 

“Bring us in lower, trooper. We’re nearly to the beacon,” she ordered, glancing to the front of the carrier towards the pilot before checking the map on her bracer’s holodisplay. 

Despite the howling winds surely making flying the unwieldy craft a challenge, the response came back instantly through her headset. “ _Right away, sir. Get ready for landing, boys!_ ” the trooper bellowed; the two gunners in the orbital turrets on each wing gave unintelligible, but affirmative, cries. 

“Patch,” Barriss turned to the other surviving medic, “remember, only viable wounded are cleared for extraction.” She knew she failed to keep the bitter expression off her face as she reminded both herself and the clone of their orders.

Patch clapped her on the shoulder. “I know, Commander. I’ll--uh, take care of the tagging, if you want to take the lead on loading the wounded?” 

Barriss hesitated, wanting desperately to answer ‘yes’ to Patch’s offer, but she knew she couldn’t, not with her specialized Force capabilities being the primary reason for her presence here in the first place. 

“...No, I can do it.” She managed, breathing the cold air in slowly, a stinging sensation that oddly reinforced her resolve; she deserved this task. 

_It’s my duty_.

Patch nodded. “Alright, but you tell me right away if you need to swap, okay commander?” Barriss couldn’t see his face under the yellow and white helmet, but she knew Patch well enough to know that he was giving her a sharp --and concerned-- look. 

“I will. Thank you, Patch.” She gently patted his hand, then shrugged it off, bracing for landing. She felt a flash of shame at her weakness. What kind of Jedi was she, needing reassurance from the barely decade-old soldiers bred, trained and sworn to fight and _die_ for the Order and the Republic? The whine of the proximity beacon had become nearly deafening as they drew closer to their assigned coordinates, and she muted the frequency with a tap of her wrist com.

The carrier’s landing kicked up a large swath of the fog, casting the long tendrils of glowing foliage into heavy relief, rather than misty, invisible shadows. 

Barriss leapt from the carrier with silent grace. She opened her mind to the Living Force, feeling the familiar beacons of warmth of the troopers behind her, points of dulled light and heat where still-mending wounds marked their bodies. Casting her mind forward, she slowly began to walk forward, leading the small detachment of clones with her, Patch at her side. 

Cold, dark spots in the Force told where she needed to go, seeking out the faint embers of warmth among the growing darkness. 

“This way!” she ordered, taking off at a quick run, heading towards the fallen. Her long robes made for difficult navigation of the terrain, but for a quick extraction, she would make due. Her traditional Mirialan attire, like her tattoos, grounded her as Barriss Offee, not just another Jedi padawan running scared in the dark.

She slowed her pace, arriving at the densest concentration of the cooling embers of life; the air was filled with the smell of burned flesh and melted plastisteel, and the muffled cries of the dying and wounded, even now filtered through helmets. The oppressive cloak of death in this place became so overwhelming that Barriss had to consciously pull back her senses in the Force, in order to focus on which of the broken bodies around her still held life in them. 

“Fan out and start looking for survivors,” she ordered, and began gingerly picking her way through the carnage, seeking out the faint embers in the all-consuming dark and cold... 

One by one she reached them, giving comfort to the dying by easing their pain, then pressing a red X on their helmeted heads before moving on. The viable wounded were given a green dot instead, but still she soothed their injuries, gently touching the spots of intense heat she perceived in their presence within the Living Force, letting the energy that bound all living things together pass through her as she had been trained. Moving slowly but deliberately over the battlefield, identifying wounds as she could and passing the information to Patch via the datapad on her arm, she consciously avoided looking at the occasional remains of an armored Umbaran militiaman -- they were all dead, anyway. 

It was grueling work, moving across the wide battlefield, scarred and burnt from the impact of weapons fire and explosions, and she inevitably found the longer they searched, the fewer viable wounded they would come across. Her growing resignation only only served to deaden the cold weight in her chest. 

_We did this. We caused this,_ she thought, passing by an Umbaran with a shattered face-plate who appeared to have died in hand-to-hand combat with a similarly mangled clone trooper, then shook her head, swallowing the tightness in her throat. Such thoughts were not helpful, not right now. Right now she had to think of the living.

She felt very guilty when she realized she was hoping desperately not to come across another living inhabitant of the planet. 

She bent over another clone, hearing him give a wet, strangled cough, reaching out for her with his right arm. His ember of life was fading by the second, consumed by a patch of blazing heat in his upper chest, near the throat, underneath a segment of charred and melted plastisteel. A gentle hand on his helmeted brow calmed him as she soothed his pain with the Force, watching the ember dim.

“Easy trooper...you can rest now,,” she whispered gently, feeling his eyes on her through the helmet. “You can rest...you’ve served the Republic well.” 

Again, he sputtered wetly, shuddering, his breathing growing shallow. Barriss, practiced at this grisly task, broke her link with his mind as the last traces of his life force were snuffed out. Her hand trembled as she added a small red X to his helmet, then pulled herself to her feet; she absently smoothed her skirts.

Not for the first time, Barriss was reminded of the terrible finality of death. The Jedi taught that the dead became one with the Force, and that a Jedi should not grieve the lost. And yet on the battlefield, surrounded by the dead and dying clones who had known nothing but war from the moment they attained sentience, such platitudes held little comfort. 

_“Commander!”_ Patch’s voice tore her away from her philosophical musings, her gaze tracking across the battlefield towards him. He pointed overhead, lifting Barriss’s eyes towards the unmistakable grotesque curves of an Umbaran starfighter. 

Before she could think, she had her lightsaber in her hands, fingers hovering above the ignition switch. Her eyes were glued to the ship above, watching. Perhaps the pilot would not see them as a threat, and move on. 

But as if the pilot had heard Patch, the damp air crackled and hissed as a salvo of yellow-green energy bolts ripped through the foggy air, searing the already marred earth between where Barriss and her clones stood, incinerating anything in their path. 

_“RUN!!”_ she called out, starting her backwards retreat over the still glowing earth. Clipping her lightsaber back to her belt, she began grabbing flora with the Force and yanking it free from the earth, toppling it in hopes of buying them more time to flee. 

The sound of splintering wood and the smell of burning cellulose told her that her efforts were in vain. Panting hard, Barriss sprinted, cursing her occasional neglect of physical conditioning, leaping over the forms of dead sentients, moving as fast as her legs could carry her, hands bunching her robes at her hips to avoid tripping over their muddy hem. 

“ _Go! Back to the ship! Tell them to take off!”_ she screamed at her troopers as she saw them firing their blasters uselessly into the air, her own voice muffled in her ears as another plasma blast struck behind her. The crackling heat raised the panic in her blood, the impacts growing closer with each deafening roar and hiss of vulcanized turf, the stench filling her throat and lungs. 

She tried to call upon the Force to aid her, pushing its energy down into her tired leg muscles, to do anything to carry her away from the battlefield and the flying death nipping at her heels, but her connection to the Force felt too drained from her work with the dying clones to aid any more than it already was.

Patch’s arm windmilled encouragement as the LAAT began to rise off the ground, laden down with a number of wounded as well as her small squad of clones.

 _“COME ON, COMMANDER!!”_ His voice cracked as he screamed after her, the other clones joining in the chorus, urging her faster.  
  
Barriss saw the orbital wing turret nearest her rotate as it tracked its target, and the trooper inside began to fire on the starfighter, a unbroken stream of green energy sending it into an evasive roll and mercifully halting the onslaught behind her.  
  
Taking her opening, Barriss used the last reserves of her energy to launch herself towards the ascending carrier, crashing to the deck in a decidedly ungraceful, panting heap of Jedi. One of the clones grabbed her and dragged her clear of the doors as they closed behind her. She heard Patch below “ _Jedi aboard -- get us out of here!”_ and felt the sudden increase of g-force as the carrier clawed upwards through the air, taking them away from the cursed earth of Umbara. 

Barriss’s ribs ached with the effort to breathe. She pinched her eyes shut as she pulled herself into a sitting position, gritting her teeth against the discomfort. The clone that had dragged her inside helped her back to her feet. 

“That was a close one, Commander!” he -- Scotch, she remembered -- said with a laugh. 

Barriss willed her breathing to slow, clenching her free hand tightly to keep it from shaking. “It was. G-good work, everyone.” 

The familiar dull thunder and whine of the LAAT’s wing turrets rumbled through the main cabin, the clone troopers moving quickly to start work on the wounded they were able to load on, laid out on low repulser-gurneys. Patch tossed a set of bacta-injectors to Barriss, followed with an electrolyte ration and another sharp look through his helmet that had her glancing down, chagrined. 

She caught the supplies without raising her head, easing down next to the nearest wounded, checking her notes on the datapad before she began to administer the bacta to the clone, removing melted plastisteel and armorweave-threaded bodysuit where necessary and doing her best to keep a calm expression even as the sounds and sensations of an increasingly desperate battle echoed around her. 

The LAAT gave a hard jostle, sending some of the gurneys sliding across the carrier’s main cabin.

 _“WATCH IT, LUCKY--WE GOT WOUNDED ON BOARD!!”_ Patch snarled, bracing the gurney in front of him. The unfortunate trooper moaned in discomfort, and Barriss felt a pang of intense sympathy. 

_“Sorry, sir! can’t shake this damn--INCOMING STARFIGHTERS! Three o’clock high!”_

The co-pilot -- Crashdown -- swore on the main channel, and the heavy rolling sound of the main dorsal cannons arming filled the tense air. 

The troopers and Barriss looked at one another, the silence punctuated by the pulsing discharge of the gunship’s chin turrets. The high-yield seeker missiles rotated, sliding into place.

Barriss felt her belly clench, panic rising in her once more. She quelled it as best she could, changing the needle on her bacta injector as she pulled herself along towards the next gurney. 

_“BRACE!”_

The unmistakable clang and boom of the rumbling mass-drivers firing momentarily robbed Barriss’s ears of their hearing. She pulled herself up next to the wounded in front of her, hands shaking as she pulled up her notes on the datapad. 

The cannons began to reload. 

“I-I’m sorry--this may sting.” She whispered tightly to the wounded clone, injecting the large blaster burn on the side of his head. He didn’t make a sound.

The LAAT swung hard to the left; Barriss braced the gurney with her knee and elbow, stubbornly moving to the next injection site. 

_“LUCKY, I MEAN IT!”_ Patch roared, handing off his own injector to another trooper and climbing over the gurneys towards the cockpit, disappearing up the ladder. 

_"BRACE!”_  
  
The cannons discharged once more, deafening Barriss again. She grabbed the side of her head as she continued in a low crawl to the next gurney, hurriedly reviewing her notes on her datapad. 

Another explosion rocked the LAAT, accompanied by the tearing of metal and the hiss of damaged electronics. The internal red lights dimmed. They’d been hit.

_“HUTCH, COME GRAB HIM!!”_

Moments later, Lucky’s limp body came halfway down the ladder of the cockpit. Hutch grabbed the lower half of their pilot and carried him back into the cabin, laying him on the deck next to the other wounded. He was alive and moving, so it was probably a concussion.  
  
The cannons began to reload. 

There was another jolt and a crackling blast against the doors on Barriss’s left, followed by another whine and the muffled, dulled sound of stressed metal groaning under g-forces.  
  
“ _We’ve lost one of our gunners, eltee! Most of the port wing too._ ” The LAAT began to list in that direction, g-forces threatening to pin Barriss against the side of the gunship. 

“ _Stang, can’t hit these bastards!_ ” Crashdown’s voice could be heard dimly in the growing cacophony inside the carrier.

 _"BRACE!”_  
  
The cannons thundered again, rattling the whole ship this time, as well as her teeth. Barriss forced herself to stand, grabbing one of the rails overhead and swinging over the sloping gurneys towards the starboard side of the carrier as Crashdown tried to correct their list to port. Clambering along the ridged hull doors, she finally reached the front of the cabin, blindly groping for the ladder and pulling herself up into the cockpit, her hood just poking out of the hatch. 

“Patch! _What’s happening?”_  
  
The clone medic was in the co-pilot’s seat, Crashdown now attempting to keep them in the air from the pilot's station. Wind whistled through cracks in the bubble cockpit. At once, the Mirialan could see how dire their situation had become. 

Not one but three Umbaran starfighters had flanked them to the damaged port side, and now swept across their bow from almost directly above, the strafing fire from the LAAT's chin turrets splashing uselessly against more manoeuvrable crafts' bow shields. By the absence of the life she had formerly felt there, she abruptly realized that both orbital turrets were gone. 

With a grunt, Barriss pulled herself into the cockpit to crouch behind Patch in the co-pilot’s seat, eyes trained on the middle fighter, which looked to be powering up for a killing blow. The desperate panic in her belly began to burn and she set her jaw and stepped back, reaching into the Living Force and pulling its energy through her. 

She felt the vast, ancient energy wash over her as she drew her arms back as far as the cramped space would allow, then slammed her foot forward, swinging her arms up and out, fingers forming a diamond over the enemy’s ball cockpit as they stopped just above the rim of Patch’s helmet. 

The lead starfighter reeled in the air, and the pilot was crushed back into the glowing cockpit. The fighter shimmied, then began to drift, causing the other ships to break formation and abandon their attack runs. 

Patch quickly adjusted his aim, sighting in on the suddenly drifting starfighter directly ahead of them.

 _"_ _BRACE!”_  
  
The mass-driver cannons fired at point-blank range, two flashing streaks from overhead arcing towards the lead fighter, detonating against his shields and nearly tearing off his starboard wing array, sending the blazing wreckage of the starfighter crashing into his wingman to port, causing that fighter to spin out of control.

“Hang on--where the hell are you--” The copilot’s voice was lost in the sudden din of scraping metal on metal. The gunship gave another hard lurch, throwing Barriss backwards into the ladder hatch below. Pain blossomed along her back as she struck the lip of the bulkhead. Fighting her loss of balance, she caught herself and hung precariously, clinging to the ladder with her legs and looking down past them into the crowded cabin. 

The port-side door was crumpled in from another impact. No sooner had her eyes taken in the near-catastrophic damage than another blast immediately followed, and with growing horror she watched the reinforced durasteel finally give way, tearing open the flank of the LAAT to the open skies.

Before she could even scream, the gunship shuddered again from an impact to starboard, swinging hard and pouring the repulsor-gurneys into the inky black fog below, like some perverse airdrop onto the bloody battlefield. 

Barriss’s ears filled with the roar of screaming, fearful men as they clawed, trying to stay aboard, unable to find a handhold in the swinging, flaming wreck that remained of the gunship. Her eyes watered, burning from the buffeting wind, and the pain echoing through the Force. 

Letting go of the ladder, hanging now only with her legs pretzeled into the rungs, Barriss reached out desperately, feeling the warm signatures of her wounded men bright and close in the growing cold of the carrier. She seized them with the invisible tendrils from her fingers, pulling them back from the edge, as many as she could. 

_Hold on--hold on! W-we need just a little more time..._ she begged silently, her muscles tightening as she fought the pull of alien gravity, the glowing fauna of Umbara’s trees below punching through the fog as the carrier lost altitude. 

The embers of life abruptly burned brighter in panic; Barriss winced, but kept her hold. She could feel her strength fading, fear building in her chest and filling her throat. 

A bright, crackling flash of energy blasted straight through the carrier. 

In an instant, those warm embers became impossibly cold in her grasp. 

“ _No…_ ” She squeaked, her eyes wide and unblinking. 

The stern of the gunship was little more than twisted, glowing scrap. Another blast of energy came through, shearing the carrier in half as it detonated the remaining ordinance in the cannons, sending the bow section into a helpless spin to port. 

Patch grabbed Barriss by the back of her robe, yanking her into the cockpit and wedging her into the copilot chair before she could think to resist. 

“PULL THE EJECT COMMANDER!! WE’RE GOING DOWN!” he yelled through the buffeting wind, the main windshield cracked. 

“ _Patch_ \--”

 _“NOW,_ COMMANDER! YOU NEED TO SURVIVE!” 

Barriss choked, then nodded mutely. Her arms and hands felt cold, leaden as she found the emergency eject, pulling the tab. The cockpit dividers slammed into place and the co-pilot’s compartment blasted away from the flaming wreckage. She watched from inside the small cracked dome as what remained of the LAAT continued to spin to port before it vanished inky fog below, igniting into a fireball of flaming fuel and metal before it slammed into the surface. 

The blast echoed into her chest, through the air and the Force. 

Alone, Barriss Offee fell towards the cursed earth of Umbara.

\---

The damaged escape pod barely had enough thrust left to make for a safe landing, some klicks away from the inferno that marked the crash site of her stricken gunship. Barriss, to her credit, had managed to steer the unwieldy pod well enough on its landing thrusters to avoid smashing into any large bits of foliage, but it didn’t stop her from leaving a long gash in the wet earth as the small craft skidded to an unceremonious landing, deep in the heart of Umbara. 

She was fortunate the pod did not also catch fire in its barely controlled crash.

Truth be told, Barriss was fortunate in many ways: she had survived the landing, the destruction of the LAAT, the orbital dogfights above the planet, and the guerrilla attack on the field hospital. Beyond all that she had survived both battles on Geonosis, mind-controlling worms that nearly forced her best friend to kill her, and countless other hazards that had claimed others on the same battlefields she had somehow walked away from. Many sentients would be grateful for such fortune in their lives, particularly in times of war. 

Barriss, however, did not feel fortunate. 

Instead, she felt alone, cold, humming with panic and tightly-controlled grief, a buzzing cocktail in her head that caused a dull, emotional numbness that she had heard many troopers call “shellshock.”

The pod’s small dashboard communicator crackled with static as she tried to catch any signal she could, her small frame curled tightly on the seat, chewing on her lip. Her fingers shook on the frequency dial. After several minutes of fruitless searching, she gave up, tucking her legs tight to her chest and curling up in the metallic darkness of her pod. The numbness sank deeper in her chest, tightening around her ribs like a belt. 

_Will anyone come? Will….will anyone notice I’m gone?_

The thought cut hard in her chest. She swallowed through a tight throat, pulling her legs closer. She buried her face against the singed, dirty fabric of her robes. Would her master, Luminara Unduli, check the list of the missing and dead? Would she leave to find her? 

_No…_ Barriss’s fingers tightened on her arms, her nails digging into the thick fabric of her sleeves. _...no...if I can’t bring myself back...she won’t look...no one will._ _It's not the Jedi way._

_...Except Skywalker._

A memory flashed across her mind: trapped inside the tank crawler on Geonosis under thousands of tons of twisted metal and earth. She remembered the tight quarters, the darkness--her and Ahsoka had bombed the reactor with the cannon on the crawler, but the cave-in trapped them inside. 

Barriss remembered the same feeling of numb acceptance that she would die in the crawler, that her master would not find her before she slipped away, but Ahsoka _knew--_ she _knew!--_ her master would find her, he just needed something to go on…

 _But that was them...not you and_ her _. You’re too old for such things, Barriss._

The thought sat heavily in the numbness in her throat and belly, before giving rise to a sharp, defiant anger. Her arms tightened and she lifted her head, looking out through the cracked dome of the pod at the dark skies of Umbara. 

_...Maybe I am, but I’m not dying here, not without trying._

She remembered holding her lightsaber so Ahsoka could work, tapping out a code on the battery of their would-be tomb and her communicator; the Togruta, so much younger than they were now, tapping the two devices together until she exhausted the last of her strength. 

She _wouldn’t give up, and I can’t, not yet. Not until I try._

The anger in her belly burned away her exhaustion, giving her a small kick-start into action. Still shaken from the crash, she couldn’t move with the same speed she normally would, but she was able to carefully open the pod and extract herself from it. 

The crash site was burrowed into the deep blue fog, in a clearing among the twisted flora of Umbara’s alien surface, luminous red foliage adding to the unsettling perpetual twilight around her. Barely visible in the cloud cover and fog, lightning-like flashes streaked overhead, a reminder of the battle above the planet, now in its third day. 

Barriss assessed her surroundings, boots staying fairly stable on the surface underneath her; she had been lucky to avoid landing in wetter terrain, otherwise the pod would likely sink over the next few hours. 

From her training, she knew there was a small survival kit for three rotations in the pod, as well as a flare; the latter was useless in these atmospheric conditions, but could be useful if the local wildlife got too close, she supposed. In the LAAT, the kit was in the housing behind the copilot’s chair. A few minutes of groping inside the darkened pod and she found the thick release tab to yank the seat forward. 

Tugging the case free, she used her knee to push the seat back in, sinking back onto the smoke-damaged cushion and breaking the seal. The top lid had a set of GAR-standard emergency comm signals secured inside, with neatly organized contents honeycombed together. Contained inside was: 

  * Two bacta injectors, with quick-release triggers
  * Three rotations’ worth of high calorie rations
  * Three rotations’ worth of electrolyte jellies
  * Two GAR-regulation flares
  * A small liquid filtration pack
  * A compressed thermal wrap
  * A GAR-regulation small blaster, with one clip of ammunition
  * An external battery



It wasn’t much, but Barriss also reasoned that it was better than trying her hand at foraging on this nightmare planet. Next, she needed to work out a plan. 

Extracting a pack of the jellies, she removed her bracer and tried to pull up the datapad function. It was now that she noticed the extent of the damage it had taken in the final minutes before ejecting from the LAAT, but she was able to pull up a fragmented portion of the display. The jellies were tough nodules with a tart taste, but again, it was better than risking eating something that might be toxic. She gnawed on one, scrolling through the datapad to determine what functionality it still retained, which wasn’t much. 

Her teeth ground hard into the ration as she swallowed her growing anger and panic. These were of no use right now--she needed to keep a clear head. 

_Establish contact._ That was the first thing she ought to try. Barriss nodded to herself, turning back to the damaged comm, then the kit in front of her, eyes on the battery. Could she try to use it to boost the signal like Ahsoka had that time?

She tucked the rations in her belt, standing up carefully to inspect the outside of the pod; if the external receiver was damaged, it was useless to pump any power into it. Leery to ignite her saber and draw further attention, Barriss instead cautiously trailed her fingers over the hull, near the domed window housing; most ship models like the LAAT had cabling running alongside the atmospheric gaskets. Such were the things a young padawan learned when she moved from days of quiet meditation in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant to fighting for her life as a commissioned officer of the largest military force the Republic had ever mustered. 

The metallic surface of the pod was blistered from the heat of near misses and blast damage it had suffered before the crash, with some of metal so brittle that it felt more like paper than the reinforced durasteel hull of a military craft. But, as far as she could tell, there were no breaches that might have damaged the receiver. 

Hopeful, she carefully moved the survival kit and crawled back inside, wiggling underneath the console to check the comm's wiring. Probing further, the access panel popped open, activating the amber service light inside. 

_Alright...check the wiring to the transmitter…_ Barriss’s heart sank as she peered inside, and smelled the acrid stench of fried electronics. Unwilling to give so soon, she bit her lip and held her breath, pulling the wires out to better see the damage. 

The transmitter wire was still intact; the tuner and power wiring, however, had melted together into a sticky mass. 

With an exasperated sigh, Barriss sat back up, swallowing a curse. Her eyes fell to the damaged datapad on top of her survival kit. 

_...could the wires be swapped…?_ It was worth a try. 

Gathering the electronics in her lap, she began to dismantle the housing of her datapad, carefully withdrawing the more delicate electronics inside. Much to her mounting frustration, however, the datapad only had one proper wire. She exhaled sharply, feeling a flare of anger in her chest. 

_Of course._

\---

_“---Umbaran airbase, General--”_ Static crackled loudly against Barriss’s ear. She twisted the wire, holding her breath as the resistors burned against her fingertips. 

_Come on…_ Barriss winced again as static hissed in her ear. _...come_ **_on._ **The Force rippled around her, tight and close against her mind.

 _“--the C-capital.”_ The comm hissed. _“---long range missiles causing retreat--”_ More static. She strained her ear to hear more, recognizing the stilted Coruscanti accent of General Kenobi. 

The buzz of static spiked, distorting a less familiar voice, consuming the words being spoken. She twisted the wires again, wincing as the battery sparked. 

_“---extra ships not yet arrived---we cann---”_ The comm made a loud surge and popped, falling silent in Barriss’s ear. She twisted the wires again, but to no avail. 

She lifted her head from the console, where she had been listening though the dead transceiver's tinny speaker, bitter frustration stinging her throat. 

_It’s as if something is_ **_stopping_ ** _me from hearing anything useful!_ She crawled out of the pod, trying to control her boiling anger. She wanted to scream--hours of effort and resources wasted for a garbled message! The Force seethed around her, growing hot and rippling. 

_I’m stranded here--no comm, no transport--how am I supposed to get home? s_ he raged silently, her eyes stinging as she stood, flexing her hands before tightening them into fists. _I’m going to die on this cursed planet! I--I....I…_

Barriss’s eyes turned to the sky, her anger cooling to a dread-filled hopelessness, heavy and cold on her chest. The aerial bombardment flashed overhead, mute washes of color on a dull, cloudy, black sky. 

_....we brought war here...maybe...maybe…_ The hopelessness sank heavier, physically pulling her down to the damp earth underneath her feet. Her eyes stayed fixed on the flashes, feeling a wet sting as tears welled. _I_ ... _do...deserve...this._

She felt small, looking away from the sky and down at the earth under her. Hugging herself, she dug her nails into the ribbed cloth of her sleeves, curling low and hiding her face in her hood. 

_...this war is our fault. We deserve this._ **_I_ ** _deserve this._ Barriss shrank even smaller against the dark earth, a quivering, inky blot in the mists rolling over her crash site. 

At the pain in these thoughts, the Force closed around her, neither hot nor cold now, but a warm, comforting presence. It eased against the sides of her mind, soothing the fear and helping abate the sharp edges of her despair. 

Barriss remembered this sensation: it was what Luminara taught her as a youngling, to banish the same feelings when they, like her, were smaller and less crushing. 

_...but...aren’t I too old for such things?_ Her thoughts were to the Force, not herself. _...I deserve this…don’t I?_

No words came to her, but instead, the Living Force flooded through her, as it had before, bringing with it warm strength and comfort.

An audible choke escaped her lips, eyes spilling over in the dark of her hood and onto her knees. Shaking, she opened herself to the Force, letting it flow through her, lifting her from the ground and back to her feet. It found her pain and dulled it, easing her hopelessness. It guided her back to the pod, to shelter, to rest. 

Making her way back, Barriss realized that she was not only hungry, but utterly exhausted. Like an overworked child, she crawled into the dark safety of her pod, tucking herself in the darkness of a familiar space. 

The Force hummed through her, easing to a soft, gentle current, rather than the torrent that had brought her back here. Coaxed by the gentle, reassuring touch, she picked through her survival kit and extracted a ration, nibbling it as she made herself as comfortable as the pod would allow with its relatively compact space. For Barriss, this meant arranging herself in a curled ball with her robes tucked around her legs, and carefully removing her short mantle to use as a blanket on her upper half. Despite her solitude, she kept the close-fitting head-wrap around her hair, both for warmth and for its familiar presence. 

She closed her eyes, finishing the ration as the Force eased her into a gentle sleep, hidden away safe inside her pod. 

\---

Barriss dreamed of herself, much smaller than she was now. 

She remembered feeling alien among her peers, and so receding, becoming quiet and reserved, watching and trying to understand how it was so easy for them to talk and play together, and how hard it was for her to find her own spot among them. 

She remembered sleepless nights, haunted by clouds of anxiety and fear, racing thoughts and harsh words put into the mouths of younglings who had never uttered them, but to Barriss, they felt utterly real and inescapable. 

One night, she fled her small bunk, slipped through the door to her creche and wandered the dark halls of the Jedi Temple, not sure if she was looking for something in particular, or if she was simply hoping to escape the thoughts that plagued her and kept sleep from finding her. 

Luminara had been the one to find her first, of course. She remembered her as a tall figure in dark robes and an elegant draped headdress, with deep blue eyes and a green face like her own. 

_“Are you lost, little one?”_ Luminara smiled, her voice a watery echo in the dream. 

Too shy to answer, Barriss hugged herself and tried to will herself invisible. 

_“Ahh, I see...you have too much fear to sleep, don’t you?”_ The Jedi gave her a soft, knowing smile. _“Come...I will help you find a way to quiet your fear…”_

Barriss remembered sitting with Luminara, cross legged in a meditation pose, shivering and nervous. She did not want to disappoint a Jedi Master, especially one likely to take her as a padawan as was the Mirialan tradition, but her mind whispered imagined truths that picked away at her. 

_“Feel around your mind...there is a barrier between it and the Force.”_ Luminara explained softly, _“If you find this, and cross it, the Force will find its way to you, Barriss._

_Come, follow the sound of your thoughts, and just beyond…_

Barriss remembered clenching her eyes shut, shaking as she pushed through the loud chaos of her fear, to find a thin, cold shell, just beyond them. It was like a thin sheet of ice atop a lake, holding back the tide on the other side.

_...and if you are careful....you can cross it...._

Hesitantly, she reached out with her mind, her tiny fists balled in her lap as she willed herself closer, the thoughts a loud cacophony around her. As if extending an invisible hand, she tapped the barrier, and---

** The Fourth Night **

There was a loud banging overhead against the metal shell of the escape pod, shaking Barriss awake. Her hand went to her lightsaber as she looked around wildly for any trace of her would-be assailants. 

She saw nothing, even though the fog had abated some, marginally increasing her field of vision. The comforting embrace of the Force had snapped back as she awoke, leaving her feeling slightly blind. Time had passed, but she had no way to know how much. 

Cautiously, she probed outward, looking for warm beacons of life near her, saber still clutched in her hand. In the rippling ebbs and flows of the Living Force, she felt nothing beyond the low-grade warmth of the trees around her, though she might have caught a glimpse of one of Umbara’s fierce banshees fleeing beyond the reach of her senses.

_...then...what…?_

The Force contracted tightly against her mind, turning cold. 

Barriss’s eyes widened. Something...was very, very _wrong_. 

Her hand still curled tightly around her saber, she haphazardly pulled her hood back on, then opened the pod and climbed out on shaking legs. The idea of leaving her shelter was less than appealing, but so rarely was there such a strong disturbance in the Force like this one. Steeling herself, Barriss willed her breathing to slow, closing the craft behind her. 

The air was damp against her bare face, the cloud cover thinned enough to show more flashes from the unceasing orbital battle. 

Her mind clearer from a bit of rest and food, Barriss could now see that the pattern of the battle overhead did not match what she had seen during her starfighter’s descent to the planet a few days ago. Frowning, she saw a large, glowing shape-- something big hitting the upper atmosphere -- but without any sort of scope, she couldn’t ascertain what exactly--

A sudden, brutal wave rippled through her sense of the Living Force, slamming against her mind as hard as a blaster bolt. Barriss staggered, grabbing the side of her head as she looked around her, fear gnawing at her belly. 

Another wave of pure agony struck her, bringing her to the ground, falling on her knees. The Force had grown impossibly cold around her, pulsing with dozens of minute shockwaves, ricocheting off one another and pressing against her mind. 

Confused, she reached out with her senses, trying to feel for the source of the icy disturbance around her. 

At the outer limits of her senses, she could feel a battle; but unlike any battle she felt before, amidst the echoes of death, it was riddled with fear and panic and _guilt_. Worse, the snuffing traces of heat she found at the heart of the cold waves felt familiar...almost like....

… _Clones._

Barriss’s heart stopped.

_Could I really be that close? With such bad comm frequency?_

Dread settled on the back of her neck; there was something more going on here. Her mental sense of the battle would not ricochet around like this, even with live assailants on both sides instead of droids; she had experienced enough battlefields to know that much. No...something was very, _very_ wrong. 

Advancing towards the source of the disturbance did not feel like the soundest of plans, but Barriss had to admit it was better than waiting until one of Umbara’s fearsome predators found her here. At least she had gotten some sleep before setting out this time. 

Barriss returned to the pod, taking with her the survival kit, and after a moment’s hesitation, holstering the blaster on her hip, opposite her lightsaber. After giving the pod one last once over, she reached back inside, activating the self-destruct sequence; GAR regulations stipulated that if she were to abandon the pod, it would need to be destroyed if there was any risk of it falling into enemy hands.

Without a backward glance, she took off at a swift jog, hearing the pod screech as the explosives detonated about a minute later. There was no going back now.  
  
\---

Two things became quickly apparent to Barriss: her vantage point at ground level was giving her no insight into what lay before her, and that while trying to track a disturbance through the Force while moving at this pace, on foot, without a crew with her, it was impossible to detect anything useful. 

Pausing at the base of one twisted, glowing tree, Barriss breathed sharply through her nose, swallowing her frustration. She _had_ to see whatever it was she was fast approaching.

She leaned back, looking upward, her eyes narrowing as she pondered if the upper limbs might support her weight. 

_Only one way to find out…_ Taking a few steps back, she took off at a run, grappling with the overhead branches, pursing her lips and rolling over, sitting astride the glowing bark like a speeder. Barriss held her breath, waiting for the tree to crack and buckle under her weight.

A few moments of silence, save for the rushing wind around her, told Barriss that the branch was stable enough to hold her safely. Gripping the bark tightly with her knees, she sat up straight, gingerly reaching out to the Force. 

The ricochets had dulled to icy echoes, the slightest residual traces of pain and despair rippling indistinctly as she immersed herself farther into the Force, searching for the trail that would lead her to the heart of the battle she had sensed earlier. 

No warm embers of life remained in her range. Stubbornly, she strained her reach farther, gritting her teeth against the minor spasms from the effort of holding herself in place. 

At the very edge of her senses, she felt a sudden drop off into a deep, icy chasm, with a tempestuous pull at the center, tugging at the edges of her mind’s reach. 

Barriss recoiled, snapping her wide blue eyes open and swallowing, hard. 

This...was something else. Something.... _dark._

Her hands shook as she forced herself to breathe, wedging an electrolyte jelly in her mouth, hoping the bitter tang would help better anchor her into her own body. Clenching her hands, digging her nails into the back of her palm, she forced herself to concentrate on the direction of the chasm, looking out from the vantage point, her palm sweating under the painful grip. 

There--a looming, dim glow of a tower, barely visible through the fog and glowing trees.

Whatever caused the echoes she felt, it was there. 

Steeling herself, Barriss stood carefully on the branch, hiking her long robes up and knotting it to her belt; she would need to have better mobility if she stood any chance of getting there. Shifting her stance, she cautiously eased back into a gentle flow with the Force, letting it pull and swirl around her legs as a gentle warm current, keeping the echoes of death at bay. 

With one last slow, deep breath, Barriss began to run, jumping, almost flying through the Force, feeling it fuel her steps and add power, speed, lightness to her gait. She sprang through the glowing limbs of the trees, catching and swinging with otherworldly grace, covering ground at a rate that only a Jedi could manage. 

The cold air around her pulled back her hood, rippling her mantle as she continued to hurtle towards the disturbance, feeling the Force grow colder when she allowed herself to reach farther on brief pauses, looking and feeling to see if she had reached the abyss she had so keenly felt.

Around the fourth mental check-in, panting as she rested on the dim stalk of a red-glowing limb of Umbaran flora, Barriss realized she was not getting closer to the tower, but rather circling around it. Instead, the icy chasm had begun to _move_. 

This grim realization raised a question Barriss didn’t want to ask: was this a _person?_

...No, surely not. No single sentient could put off _this--_ a cold so severe it burned...could they?

 _But...then how is it_ moving?

She cast her eyes around the forest, her breathing still sharp in her ribs. The fog and the glowing trees were starting to cause her vision to blur and double, making her sense of direction outside of the Force unreliable. 

A sharp wave of thunder buckled her where she perched, nearly knocking Barriss to the ground. She hugged the tree, her eyes wild and frantic. 

Another psychic blow buffeted against her mind, sharp and painful, like she’d been struck across the face. 

_...if there are clones...they will need me_ , she told herself, swallowing her fear as she drew the Force into her tired, battered limbs. Pointing herself towards the source of the dark chasm, she jumped, catching another branch and beginning again to run. 

This route she had chosen proved more difficult, now more wild and treacherous. She ran onwards, ragged and fueled by her ironclad determination that the clones would need her and she would not let them down, not like she had Lucky and Hutch and Patch and Crashdown. She could not fail--she had lost too many to this blasted war on this cursed world, she would not let the darkness claim more lives, not if she had the chance. 

Around her, the roar of the wind became studded with the distant, muffled cries of battle. In the Living Force, beacons of warmth were growing in their intensity as she willed herself faster, swinging from branches, losing herself in the Force’s current as it flowed through her limbs and beckoned her onward. 

One by one, she felt the beacons of life snuffed out, engulfed in the growing cold chasm that now seemed much, much closer. 

Her resolve turned, in an instant, into unbridled, consuming fury. 

_THEY. NEED. ME._

She pulled the Force tight to her body, helping her be faster, more agile, a graceful dark spectre hurtling through the shadow forest of Umbara. Her anger boiled hot at her core, feeding the heat of the Force, giving her greater strength, but robbing her of clarity and focus. Distantly she heard the warnings about the dangers of giving into such emotions, but in her desperation she cast the thoughts aside. 

She realized could no longer feel the beacons of warmth or even the great icy chasm, could only see the whirling branches and glowing flora as she sprang across the tangled limbs of the forest, the Force guiding her steps, a hunter hot on the trail of her quarry, though she still could not know or see what it was she sought, only that she was _needed_ , they _needed_ her to _heal them,_ and if she wasn’t fast enough--A loud crack under her boot broke her concentration and her legs buckled and slipped, sending her into a scrambling descent to the forest floor.  
  
Barriss’s head cracked against a stout, twisted branch. Unconscious, she sprawled into an undignified tangle, netted between the glowing limbs of the alien Umbaran trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My wife knows a surprising amount about the inner workings of a radio, as it turns out. 
> 
> The LAAT is an absolute tank of a vehicle. A heavily armed and armored minivan, in her words.
> 
> This one ended up a little heavier on the pew-pew and the angst than the gay, but we promise more of that is to come. But to understand how Barriss fell in a way that feels more satisfying than we got in the show, we need to see it, step by step. At least, that's what we're going with. 
> 
> The events of this chapter occur simultaneously with the Clone Wars episodes "The General," "Plan of Dissent," and "The Carnage of Krell," so if you are confused by what Barriss is sensing, those are worth a watch, though it will also be explained in the next chapter. 
> 
> Anyways, warned you this one was going to be dark!


	4. Part I: Shadows - Survivor - Umbara, 20 BBY

Barriss wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she finally came to, her one arm pinned against her chest and the other twisted behind her as she looked down into the flapping jaws of a vixus, one of the more horrifying fauna of Umbara. 

Swallowing her panic, she realized that she was hung some meters above it, tangled in the branches of a strange tree, but thankfully safe from the nightmarish creature lurking below. 

Another small miracle added itself to Barriss’s list of ‘fortunate’ accidents. 

Slowly, Barriss turned her head, then began to rotate her battered body, before finding that her left leg was firmly wedged between two branches. The motion brought with it a hot spasm of pain, an indication that she had likely strained something in her knee and thigh. 

_Of course…_ She gritted her teeth, wiggling an arm free to grab for the survival kit, only to find it missing. She swallowed a Mirialan curse she’d picked up when her Master had dropped an antique book on her foot, leaning back in the branches to center herself and taking another slow, controlled breath. 

_Right. I can’t stay here…_ Her leg throbbed with pain as she again twisted her neck to get a good look at it. Barriss groped for her lightsaber, relieved to find it had remained secured on her belt. Squinting in the strange near-darkness, she thumbed the ignition switch. The blue blade leapt from her hilt with a _snap-hiss_ , giving her a much better view of her situation.

Luckily, her left leg did not appear twisted or broken, merely bent and clamped between several branches; she shifted her weight, hooking her right leg into the knotted fork of the strange tree to take the pressure off her injury. The pain was still present, but somewhat dulled.

It was hardly ideal, Barriss mused, but also much better than it could have been; she supposed she should be grateful for that. 

Looking back down at the glowing maw of the vixus, she carefully weighed her options. Cutting herself free recklessly would likely send her directly into the jaws of the beast below her, but she couldn’t see a clear way to free her left leg without some pruning; that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible, just…not as straightforward.

She chewed her lip, checking her belt for electrolyte jellies; a few had survived her journey. Gnawing on one, she reached back behind her and levered herself up slightly, finding some purchase against the trunk, and eased herself down, so she was more-or-less sitting with her back flush against the bark. 

Barriss eased her nerves as best she could, then tried lifting her left leg; it caught at the heel and top of her foot. She closed her eyes, gripping the branches with trembling arms as she attempted to roll her ankle, teasing her foot loose ever so slowly. _A Jedi was supposed to be the master of their own body_.

She reached an arm down to loop under her left thigh, and with a gasp of pain, she was finally free.

Now disentangled, Barriss shifted so she could sink down on the thick fork where one stout limb curved out and upwards. The electrolyte jelly had settled some of the shakiness in her limbs, but she had become acutely aware how much energy she had expended trying to reach the battlefront. 

Closing her eyes again, she reached out to the Living Force, the edges of her mind feeling ragged and raw from how much she had been immersing herself in it however long it had been since she arrived on Umbara.

Barriss gasped as her body was again seized by the rib-tightening, icy cold depths of the chasm in the Force she had been pursuing. It felt as if she were drowning, pulled into the freezing, brackish waters of a storm, drawing her deeper into the depths, away from any warmth or light. She ripped herself back, recoiling and holding herself tight to the tree, her eyes wide, her lungs heaving. 

_What could have caused..._ this _?_

Barriss was not entirely sure she wanted to know.  
  
But waiting was not a luxury she could afford; if she was to find any survivors of the battle she had sensed, she would have to keep moving, and with the Force in such turmoil and upheaval, she would have to venture much closer to have any chance to use her senses to find the wounded. 

Cautiously, she began to move around the trunk of the tree, using her arms and uninjured leg to begin her descent, all the while trying not to attract the attention of the vixus. Even so, Barriss staggered upon landing, sweat beading on her brow and her arms shaking from exertion. She moved away from the vixus, which seemed to have taken no notice of her at all, to her relief. 

Her next test was to see how much weight her leg could take; the results proved to be less than ideal. She had to splint the leg. For a moment, she considered trying to heal it on her own, but quickly dismissed the idea: she would need every scrap of power left to get to the survivors, let alone aid them.

Cursing inwardly at the loss of the bacta injectors, Barriss drew her lightsaber again and selected a few thin, glowing limbs, cutting them down and adjusting the length to fit her needs. Lacking bandages, she gently cut loose several strips of her robes from around her calves, fashioning them into long, bindable lengths. It was short work from there to secure the splint, and to cut a bit of alien timber to the right length for a crutch. 

Encouraged by her newfound mobility, she chewed another electrolyte jelly as she began to make her way towards what felt like the center of the disturbance. She had two jellies left--hopefully, it would be enough. _I told Patch I would take care of myself. I won’t break my word._

Only minutes later, she came across the first signs of battle.

The wreckage of war was visible first as smudges in the fog, resolving into the bent and twisted bodies of clone troopers, woven among the roots of the glowing Umbaran flora, with the occasional body hung limply in the branches of the trees, as if thrown by some supernatural force. 

The Mirialan swallowed, her fingers tight on the crutch in one hand, shivering slightly as she looked around. Her sense of the Force felt almost blinded by the yawning chasm of icy darkness, a cold of a like she had never felt before, a cold so fierce that it burned her. Even pulling back, she felt the abyss gnawing at her, tugging at the frayed edges of her mind. But much as she wished, she couldn’t pull away from the Force yet, the clones _needed_ her, and she wouldn’t be able to help without it…

Fighting the urge to run, she limped along over the uneven ground, casting her gaze into the strange twilight fog.

More bodies were strewn around her. She looked closer, and saw that some had fallen to blaster fire, their armor blackened and charred by the impact of charged particle bolts, but some of them--

Barriss felt her lungs freeze as her eyes took in the wounds of the two clones nearest to her. 

Across the armor of the fallen troopers were what looked like streaks of carbon scoring, lines that sometimes broke before resuming a few inches later at a slightly different angle. This long after the initial strike, the gap between the severed sections was nearly invisible to the naked eye. No blood seeped through the cuts, not even those that appeared to bisect a limb or torso, with evidently fatal results. The odd point of penetration through the cuirass of the clone closest to her, visible as a dark hole in the glistening white armor, was far too uniform to be the result of a blaster bolt. The plastisteel shell never had a chance to oxidize beyond the first point of contact. 

She knew what these were. Those were... _li_ _ghtsaber_ wounds. 

Instinctively, her own hand went to the weapon on her belt. Moving towards another body, her mind followed the ghostly trajectory of the strike that had cut down the trooper at her feet, his severed legs lying more than a meter from his torso.

Barriss caught herself, stepping away from the corpse and letting her hand fall shaking from the hilt of her lightsaber. Her Healer’s eyes scanned the other bodies around her. 

More burns. More punctures, all uniform and neat. More severed bodies. 

_More lightsaber deaths_. 

The dark chasm in the Force tugged again at her ragged mental shields, drawing her awareness deeper as dread was replaced with pain and fear. 

_Who could have done this?_

_A Sith?_ But she had not sensed a Sith from orbit, and neither had any of the other Jedi. Surely if Dooku or even Ventress was near, they would know. This was...new.

 _Recent._

Barriss’s eyes stung as she staggered, limping through the field of torn troopers, seeking out both their murderer and, she hoped desperately, some survivors of this massacre. 

Desperation clawed at her, and she groped in the Force for any hint of warmth, any sign that there was a living being on this field of death with her, that she hadn’t been too slow, that she hadn’t failed _again_. 

Near blind against the icy disturbance that swelled over and around her, Barriss's senses finally found a telltale beacon, some meters ahead of her. 

Without a second though, she ran, ignoring the painful protests of her splinted leg. She threw the crutch aside, hobbling as fast as she could towards the one sign of life in this desolate, forsaken place. 

Her eyes took in the scene with growing horror. A banshee, one of the large predatory native species of Umbara, picked at the body of a trooper, prying under his cracked breastplate.   
  
She let loose a tortured wail, drawing her saber and launching at the nightmarish creature. “Get _away_ from him!” _He’s still alive,_ she thought frantically, remembering the glimmer of life that had drawn her here. 

The banshee recoiled with a shriek, sinking its talons deeper into its prey, dragging the motionless clone back and away from the enraged Jedi.

With a surge of anger at the creature’s daring, she reached back and hurled her ignited lightsaber through the air, tendrils of the Force anchoring it to her right hand as if it were the tip of a nerf whip, a slight pressure holding down the ignition switch. The tumbling blade pierced the bone headplate of the creature, the force of impact driving it backwards across the muddy ground, and the limp clone with it. The banshee let out a small shriek, a gasp, really, and slumped to the ground. 

Barriss called her saber back to her hand, her anger and a glimmer of desperate hope staving off the icy cold of the disturbance as she limped to the trooper. She clipped the blade to her belt, then pulled him free from the banshee’s body, wincing as the sharp claws tore new wounds. 

“I-I’m sorry, so sorry, I--” 

In the banshee’s struggles, the clone’s helmet had fallen off, caught on a tree root, and she was now faced with the pallid, limp--and very dead man underneath. He flopped like a ragdoll in her grip, half-eaten organs spilling from his fractured plastisteel armor; a lightsaber burn had pierced his chest, inches from her hand. 

Barriss recoiled and bit her own hand, swallowing a muffled scream as she staggered backwards, trembling. Her eyes stung with tears, the howling cold void in the Force snuffing out the anger in her like a candle in the wind. 

_He’s--he’s dead. I-I’m too late. I’m too late._

Barriss pulled her hand away from her mouth, seeing the marks of her teeth as pale impressions on her olive skin, and clenched it to her breast. Hot, stinging tears burned her face as she hunched over, her sprained knee shaking from the sprint. 

_I wasn’t fast enough. I’m never fast enough._

Dependable Barriss _, she called me. What a cruel joke._

The energy and will that had carried her so far drained out of her all at once, and she sunk to the bloodied ground, hugging her chest, shaking as the exhaustion and trauma of the endless night came to bear on her. Heedless of the danger, she opened her mouth and howled her despair into the night until her throat was burning and her lungs heaving for breath, her own sight blinded by the tears, dripping onto the marred earth under her.

 _They_ needed _me, and I wasn’t here. I wasn’t..._

There was a moan. At first she thought she had imagined it, but it came again, weak but unquestionably real in the here and now. Rubbing her eyes furiously, she looked around the strangely-lit battlefield as she frantically searched through the Force for any sign life left around her, any small chance that she was still needed, that she hadn’t left these poor men to die, because--because _someone like her_ had betrayed them, had cut them down, like she had cut down those farmers.

Then she felt it. One small pinpoint of warmth, the faintest ember, unmistakable in its familiarity, just at the edges of her dimmed grasp in the Force. She scrambled, sniffling and fighting back tears, limping towards it.

A clone trooper was braced against one of the low roots of a tree, bathed in its red and purple bioluminescence, missing both of his legs from what she knew had to be a lightsaber. She could make out the blue paint of the 501st on his chest and shoulders, and saw he had cast aside his helmet, revealing his grayed, sweaty face. 

He still raised his blaster with a shaking hand as Barriss approached. “S-Stay back!”   
  
Barriss froze, raising her hands slowly. Her head throbbed from what was probably dehydration, making words hard to grasp.

“I-I’m a Jedi, trooper.” She tried to keep her voice even. “B-Barriss Offee. I...I served with Ahso--Commander Tano.” Her throat caught on Ahsoka’s name: what would her friend do when she found out about her clones? She cared so much for them, on a level that even Barriss struggled to match. She swallowed a tiny sob, sniffing furiously.

“...who’s her General, then? Eh?” The clone fixed her with a steely gaze, his aim remarkably steady, even if his entire body shook. 

“Skywalker.” Barriss replied, her fingers shaking. “General Skywalker--Anakin,” she continued, not sure how else to make him believe her. “I...I promise, I’m here to help you. I’m here to help you.” 

The suspicion in the clone’s eyes remained, but slowly lowered his blaster. “En’t much….you can do now…” 

Barriss shivered, limping over and gingerly sinking down next to him. She wiped her face on her sleeve, then yanked her arm back at the smell of viscera. Force, how had she not noticed that before?

“S-sorry.” She mumbled, using her mantle to clean her face. After a moment, she unclipped it from her shoulders, offering it to the clone. 

He gave her a pained look, then accepted, wiping the damp off his own face, his blaster laid beside him. 

Barriss put her hand on his stomach, using the last bit of her reserves to feel out his injuries in the Force. She knew instantly he could not be saved - he had been out here too long without aid and was going into shock. There was little left to do but make him comfortable in his last moments. She tried to take some of his pain into herself, and instantly regretted it.

But she didn’t stop.

Her eyes watered as she looked back at him, biting her lip. 

“That..b-bad, huh?” the trooper laughed grimly. 

“I…I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Gently, she soothed the pain she felt in his sense of the Force, feeling her hold and connection to it and him shudder as it snapped away from her mind.

She had nothing left to give. 

The trooper winced, but his face had gained back a little color and his breathing was more even. He waved a shaky hand, then gave her back the mantle. She noticed that his hair, though close cropped, was marked with red streaks.

“S’al...right, sir…” he muttered, leaning back on the tree. Barriss couldn’t bring herself to move her hand away even though her connection to the Force had run dry, watching his face through a new film of tears. 

“I’ll--I’ll stay with you...until…” She couldn’t finish her sentence, swallowing. 

He gave her a half-hearted smile. “Thank you, Sir.” 

Barriss smiled back weakly, pulling her uninjured leg up and hugging it to her chest with her free arm. Her splinted leg was already stretched out, throbbing with the pain of overwork and strain and from the fall earlier. 

She looked at her palm on his plastisteel armor, noticing the blood and mud that obscured part of her diamond tattoos. The clone’s chest shuddered; her wide, watery blue eyes flicked to his face, just in time to see a final flicker of pain and then a slow dulling of the light in his almond eyes. It was a crushingly familiar sight; she had looked at those same eyes as life drained away far too many times since this blasted war had begun.

_Is this what death looks like outside of the Force?_

Barriss lifted her hand from his armor, wrapping it around her leg from the small warmth it provided. 

She let herself cry again, but no desparing howls this time; she was too old for such things, these tears, this sadness, this pain--she was better than this, wasn’t she? _Jedi_ didn’t cry like this, did they? 

She was too tired besides. Barriss was a giver, and she had given all she could.

She reached the edges of her mind, trying to find the Force, but only finding the frayed, cold edges, and emptiness. 

She dimly realized that the howling chasm was gone, though the cold remained in its wake.

Barriss sniffled, looking at the dead clone beside her.

_At least he hadn’t been alone._

She suddenly realized, lost in grief and guilt, that she did not know his name. 

___

It had been a hell of a night.

Or _nights_ , CT-5597 - Jesse - he could call himself that again now that _he_ was finally kriffing _dead_ , corrected himself. It never was anything but night on this blasted planet.

Nearly gotten himself killed ten different ways, piloted a ship he had never seen before in his life - boy was he gonna let those cocky flyboys _hear_ about it, not a day of flight training and he, Fives and _Hardcase_ had blown up a Seppie cruiser - lined up for execution, shot at by a firing squad, traded fire with his own fucking _brothers_ , committed mutiny, and watched as Dogma blasted a damned Jedi and he felt nothing but relief at a mission finally accomplished. 

_I can’t wait to get off this rock_ , he thought bitterly. He would be leaving a whole lot of his brothers behind. 

Well, at least he could do them the dignity of not letting them lie around to get eaten by one of those damn banshees.

That’s why, even though he was weary down the core of his Kamino-grown bones, he was out here, the lights of the Umbaran airbase at his back, making his way carefully through this danger-infested jungle of death. 

Clones were grown to be disposable, he knew that. But a brother was a brother, and even if everybody else didn’t give a damn, that was all the more reason he had to. In this he wasn’t alone - five others clones - Axyl and Jackbox from the 501st - Lookout, Greaser, and Boil from the 212th - had all volunteered for the duty of making one last check for survivors before beginning the process of moving their fallen brothers to the repulsor cart packed at the edge of this stretch of forest. Maybe they could have a little memorial before the bodies were taken away to be incinerated, as the Kaminoans insisted and the Jedi reluctantly obliged.

Jesse hadn’t been able to keep any kind of count of the fallen in their desperate fight with Krell, but he knew there were at least a dozen. Bringing down the bastard had cost them dearly, and he might have killed them all except for Tup, the lunatic who had saved them all. 

The oppressive night air was split by the discharge of a DC-15A. Once, twice, three times. In between he heard a sound that made his blood run cold, and he began to run, heedless of the dangers of this cursed world. 

He pulled into a familiar clearing, his pistols drawn, trying to sort out the infrared signatures in the near twilight. Two brothers, one down on a knee - Jackbox and Lookout, their scouts. Standing two meters from them was a small figure, humanoid but with a lower body temp than human normal, and in a shaking two-handed grasp a bar of brilliant blue plasma.

A kriffing _Jedi._

It wasn’t Krell - he’d seen the bastard slump to the floor, seen the light go out of his cruel yellow eyes - but who else could it be? The General was gone, so was Commander Tano--

“ _Cease fire_ ,” he barked. “Cease fire! _Damn it_ , boys…”

“ _T-t-trooper..._ ” A shaking, oddly familiar voice. Female, young, frightened out of her wits - and who could blame her, fending off a pair of her own men. 

He felt a tinge of uneasiness in the presence of her lightsaber, still raised in a defensive position. _She’s not Krell, though_. But had Krell been acting _alone?_

“Sir, look, she’s--look!” Jackbox hadn’t lowered his rifle, and sounded like he was just barely holding back pulling the trigger a few more times.

Jesse followed his gaze and felt his stomach lurch. At her feet, propped against one of those weird glowing trees, was a trooper, missing both legs. His heat signature was the faint orange glow of a rapidly-cooling corpse. 

Jesse let in a shaky breath. “Alright, _Jedi_ , identify yourself. Stay where you are,” he warned. He didn’t aim his pistols, not yet, not until he was sure. More trained weapons could only make this situation worse. As an ARC Trooper, that was the kind of thing Jesse was supposed to know. 

There was no response. The Jedi breathed audibly, and the lightsaber stayed raised. 

Stealing his courage, he took another step forward, gently pushing Jackbox behind him. “ _Jedi_. Identity yourself,” he repeated. 

_Was she deaf?_ Jesse wondered. Could be, any number of the missiles and cannons the Umbarans were using could blow out an eardrum. That would make this more difficult.

Another wave of exhaustion washed over him. He needed a night of rack time, maybe five hours would do. 

The lightsaber lowered, just a fraction. The glare on his faceplate lessened slightly, and he could see the Jedi was dressed in long, dark clothing, hooded. There were a lot of Jedi out here, and he didn’t know them all, but the only one he could think of who also had a blue lightsaber was--

_“Commander Offee?”_

What in the blazes was _she_ doing here - she’d been assigned to medical, last he’d checked, not the front lines. 

The Jedi heard that, at least. Her saber faltered. “I--” she said, barely audible. 

The blade of the lightsaber vanished, and Jesse breathed a deep sigh of relief. 

“Lower your weapons, boys.”

“But, Sir--” Jackbox again. 

“That’s an _order_ , Trooper,” Jesse barked. 

“Yessir,” came the response. Lookout hadn’t said anything, so Jesse hoped he’d complied with the first order. Jesse forced himself to slide his DC-17s into their holsters, fighting the instinct to keep his guns on the Jedi. _Force_ , Krell had kriffed them up.

He had never actually met Offee - Barriss, he thought her first name was - but he’d seen the quiet Mirialan a few times since the start of the war, always at the heels of Commander Tano. She’d been - polite, he thought. Not friendly, not like Ahsoka, who Jesse thought, against his better judgement, the little sister the clones had never been supposed to have. Hell, he’d heard a couple of the clones laughing about their _vod’ika_ in the barracks a few weeks back. But most big brothers weren’t brought into the universe to take orders from their little sisters, let alone instructed to save her at any cost to themselves. 

But what was the point of reminding the brothers of that? Let them have their attachment to the little Togruta, as long as when the fighting got thick they followed her orders. He’d meant to talk to Rex about it - his C.O. had been with Tano and Skywalker for longer than any of them, back to the original Torrent Company on Christophsis. 

The creature before him certainly looked like Offee, at least as much as was visible under the dark hood. He could see pale green skin, geometric tattoos crossing the bridge of her nose, wide blue eyes. But the feeling of quiet confidence and serenity that stood out about her, particularly in concert with the chaotic energy that surrounded Commander Tano, was nowhere to be seen.

Jesse was no Jedi - he couldn’t _sense_ anything beyond his own five senses. 

But if he didn’t know better he would have thought he was looking at a ghost.

Offee did not appear likely to provide any orders, so Jesse stepped closer to her. Her eyes locked on his helmet as he neared, the intensity of the gaze a bit unsettling. “Not sure how you ended up here, Commander, but you look like hel--well, I think Kix should take a look at you back at base. Will you come with us?”

The Jedi nodded. “Yes, I--I would like that…”

“Jesse, Sir.”

“--Jesse,” she finished. “You’re...you’re with Ahso--Commander Tano’s men, right?”

“Normally, Sir, though at the moment we’re under the command of--Captain Rex, Sir.”

Force how was he even to _begin_ to explain what had happened to Krell? He might end up executed for treason by the end of the day---night--- _whatever_ \- after all.

 _Probably not at her hand,_ he thought treacherously. _The girl looks like hell._

Offee didn’t seem to find the absence of a Jedi General noteworthy, or maybe she was so out of it that it didn’t occur to her to wonder. Either way, he took the gift for what it was. 

He switched his helmet comm to command frequency.

“ _Rex, Jesse, come in._ ”

There was a brief pause before a nearly identical voice crackled through his receiver. “ _Jesse, Rex, report_.”

“ _Sir, we went back out for the brothers, but we found a Jedi.”_

 _“A Je--Jesse, repeat that.”_ The clone’s disbelief, mixed with palpable fear, came through even through the tinny speaker in his bucket. 

“ _Jedi, Sir. Commander Offee_.”

There was a pause of several seconds. 

“ _I won’t ask--has she got orders for us? Does she---”_

 _Does she know about Krell_ , he wasn’t saying.

“ _Negative, Sir, she’s uh...in pretty rough shape. Two of the boys shot at her before ID was made_.”

Another pause. 

“ _Assuming she agrees, bring her back to base. If she asks about Krell, tell her there was a_ situation _, and that Captain Rex will report to her once she arrives.”_

_“Received, Rex. Will keep you updated. Jesse out.”_

The ARC Trooper changed back to squad frequency and helmet microphone. “Sir, we’ll take you back to base, have Kix take a look at you.” The Jedi stood awkwardly - at least one of her legs was injured, and she was favoring her left arm. 

Offee nodded, and hesitantly moved towards them, clipping her lightsaber to her belt. He heard the creak as Jackbox just barely stopped himself from raising his carbine. 

“Axyl, Greaser, with me. Boil, you’re in charge here with Jackbox and Lookout. Start gathering the brothers. Weapons too, we’re not leaving them for the locals.”

Hearing their affirmatives, Jesse arched his back, feeling his spine pop. 

Force he was _tired._

\---

It was... _quiet_ , for the first time since Barriss had come to Umbara. 

To be fair, it was also the first time since the crash of the LAAT that she was not outside, and that she had, however artificial, some source of light that didn’t come from her lightsaber. 

Yet again, she had survived. Some would say she was _lucky_. 

But it was hard to feel lucky after all this _pain_. 

The grief and guilt that had consumed her thoughts had turned to a detached numbness, “shellshock,” the clones called it, linking the condition with spending too long into their armor without a rest; but for Barriss, it was nothing short of protection she needed from the rawness of what had happened _out there._

Her neck ached as she raised her head to look at herself in the mirror of the small refresher in the commandant’s personal quarters, meeting her own bloodshot gaze. Kix had cleaned her up a bit during her debriefing, which reduced the swollen lump on her forehead, and bruises around her eye on the same side, and also wiped off the worst of the muck and blood and other smears she and her robes had been covered in when they finally brought her back to the airbase. Her olive green skin was darkened on the brow, nose, and cheeks from windburn. Most striking to Barriss was how gaunt her face looked; her eyes were dark and hollowed, her face lined with fatigue, and the little extra softness she had grown accustomed to was gone.

 _Ahsoka will fuss over me terribly next time she sees me_.

The thought of her friend caused her to glance down at herself guiltily. She then turned away, activating the shower. It was a proper shower - water, not sonic - reserved for whatever Umbaran officer had called this place home before the Republic came. She had tried to protest when Jesse and Fives had led her there, but they were insistent, and she had finally relented when Fives threatened to go get Rex. The shower rattled to life with a wet, choking sound that made Barriss flinch. Timidly, she crawled into the cubicle, hiding in the wash of mercifully hot water.

Barris could not remember the last time she had experienced a water shower; probably back on Coruscant, before this tour had begun. She watched as rivulets of murky liquid ran over and off the tops of her bare feet, swirling down the drain, the hot water pouring over her head. It was a comforting, if strange sensation, reminding her of the warm embrace of the Force when she meditated, a sensation lost to her for the moment. 

Her sins and failures swirled down the drain as she stood there, mind almost empty. With a start, she cranked the water off, stepping slowly out of the cubicle onto a woven mat. She reached for a towel, gently drying herself before pulling on a clean armorweave jumpsuit provided by Kix. Her short, dark hair was still damp, but she slipped it back under her hood anyway. There was something comforting about Mirialan modesty traditions at times like this. She inspected herself again, but found the only real change to be that she looked a little less like a ghost and a bit more like a very tired version of Barriss Offee, Padawan Learner and Healing Acolyte. 

Barriss sank down on the cot in the room adjacent to the refresher, pulling up her legs with a wince and resting her chin on her knees. Her brain was still turning over what she had been told by Rex and the others--about _him_ , and about what _he_ had done, and what they had been forced to do. She was certain they had been waiting anxiously for her to draw her lightsaber and execute them on the spot.

Even had she wanted to, she doubted she could have managed it. 

And now she knew exactly what had caused that cold chasm of the Dark Side she had felt so keenly. The truth rang in the Force as Rex continued his story, joined once in a while by Jesse and Fives. 

The disturbance _he_ had created had... _corroded_ her connection to the Force, somehow. It was the first time since Barriss was a youngling that she could not consistently feel her link to it, and without the warmth just outside her mind, she felt more alone than ever. 

The only verbal response to Rex’s words she could muster at the time was a hoarse, dry sob, and the unanswerable question of _“why?”_

None of the clones knew for certain, but from what Barriss had seen and felt in the Force, the theory that a great Jedi Master had been corrupted by the Dark Side was more likely than anything else. 

By the time the Captain was done, Barriss believed every word, and told them such. It was obvious they did not entirely believe her. She had lacked the will to make sure they did.

She fell sideways, lying down in a loose curl, facing the door, her lightsaber within arm’s reach of the bunk. Kix had urged her to try and rest, but her brain was still ticking over what _he_ had done. 

_He_ was a Jedi, like her. _He_ had betrayed the clones. _He_ had killed them, without a thought, without cause. 

She’d met Pong Krell before, once, with Luminara, before the war had begun. He visited the Temple infrequently, spending most of his time fighting pirates in the Outer Rim. He had never taken a Padawan, but due to his accomplishments and his power, he had been granted the title of Master even so.

A tiny glimmer of anger flared against the vast numbness in her, challenging the blank, tired stare she gave the closed door. It didn’t last long. 

How _could_ he have done this to the clones, to his own men? It didn’t make any sense--the clones felt like any other sentient in the Force; for Barriss, this was enough to make them worth caring for, giving her kindness and energy to. She had--the farmers she'd killed in self-defence, and she regretted it, regretted it as much as anything she had ever done. But the clones--the clones looked up to her, depended on her.

How could he _do_ this?   
  
Were there other Jedi who felt like Krell had? Other Jedi who saw the clone troopers at their command as sub-sentient, little more than droids made of flesh and blood? Some Jedi kept themselves detached from their men, she knew that, but they still cared. They still felt a twinge of guilt when lives were lost. Compassion was what made them Jedi, her Master had told her that. Compassion for _all_ beings. 

But…what if they _didn’t?_

What if she --and Ahsoka-- were the only ones who really viewed the clones as _real_ people? Skywalker did, she was sure of that, and Kenobi seemed to care, but...maybe it was yet another thing she had gotten _wrong?_

Barriss curled tighter, her hip and knee giving light creaks of protest at the tension. She _had_ to believe the rest of the Order was like her, that they cared, they _wouldn’t_ do what _he_ did, but…

Her head pounded. She closed her eyes.   
  
Maybe...this was too much to think about right now. Maybe it was time to let everything go, and to rest. She couldn’t lead in this state, and that was _her_ role.

The existential debates would still be there when she awoke. 

In the end, her physical exhaustion must have overcome her mental turmoil, because she found herself jerking awake at the not-particularly-thunderous sound of knuckles rapping lightly on her door. It took a minute for Barriss to remember where she was, and the swell of memories that broke over her threatened to drive her back into the oblivion of sleep.

But she was not a youngling. She was _too old_ for such things.

She was a Jedi, and she would not shame her Master and herself if she had any say in the matter. 

She sat up, tucking her hair back under its covering and brushing non-existent dust off the borrowed jumpsuit. She got unsteadily to her feet, reminded in that instant of her still injured leg. 

“Enter.”

The suite’s door slid open, and Captain Rex stood just beyond the threshold, helmet tucked under one arm. He saluted, and she nodded. “At ease, Captain.”

“Sir, Kix told me to let you get some rest, but I did want you to know we’ve established contact with Republic Command and General Skywalker at Coruscant.”

Barriss blinked. “Yes?”

Rex continued, his eyes oddly shifty. “Well, Sir, myself and Jesse gave our reports to the General. He was--not pleased, Sir. But funny thing, Sir, even after we signed off, the channel stayed open. This is pretty _unusual_ , as I’m sure you’re aware, since interstellar communications draw _serious_ resources and our networks are _already_ overtaxed. I’m afraid I don’t know what to do, Sir. In fact, Jesse, Fives, and I all thought we had best get a Jedi, and well, that’s _you_ , Sir.”

Barriss stared. “Captain--why?”

Rex leaned in. “I _strongly_ recommend you come with me, Commander. I believe your presence is required to solve this, ah...mystery.”

 _Fine. Alright, whatever._ “Very well, Captain, if you are sure.” 

_This had better be worth it,_ an undignified part of her grumbled. 

“ _Quite_ certain, Sir.”

Still utterly baffled, she followed the clone captain through the unfamiliar halls of the Umbaran airbase command building, passing a number of weary looking troopers in a mix of 501st and 212th markings. It seemed that whatever group of General Kenobi’s unit that had been detached - and sent into an ambush of 'friendly' fire - by Krell was to remain with them for the time being. 

Rex led her into the secondary communications center - the primary node was in the gutted command tower. It was laid out differently than those she was used to, but even so her eyes were drawn to the heart of the chamber, and Barriss froze. Her first thought was that she must be hallucinating. 

_“Barriss?”_

No, not hallucinating. Or, at least, it was more vivid a hallucination than she was accustomed to.

_“Ahsoka?”_

On the large circular holographic display was a half-scaled figure built of hundreds of small polygons. But even if it was hardly lifelike, the image of the Togruta padawan - her dearest friend - was absolutely unmistakable. 

“ _Yeah...it’s me_ ,” her friend said softly, with a smile that was just barely conveyed by the oddly geometric rendering. “ _I...I’m glad you’re okay_ \-- _you are okay, right_?”

Despite everything she had been through, Barriss Offee could not stop the smile that lit her features. “I’m fine, Ahsoka, I promise.”

“ _You were missing_ ,” her friend said, her tone grave. “ _For about 36 hours_. _I only found out--I only saw your name when we dropped out of hyperspace.”_

“I’m sorry I worried you,” Barriss replied. “It was--” The words simply would not come. What she had experienced, what she had endured, it went beyond something that could be conveyed on an official military channel. But she _had_ to try. For Ahsoka. 

“It was hard. We lost Patch, and so many others. I got shot down--” she grimaced. “I was alone for a while.”

“ _Thank the Force you stumbled into Rex then,”_ Ahsoka replied, the relief in her voice coming through as clearly as though she was standing in the same room. 

_I got lucky,_ she almost said, but as the memory of the last few days came back to her, the words turned to ashes in her mouth. “The Force was with me, I suppose,” she managed, and it did not entirely feel like a lie.

“ _It must have been,_ ” Ahsoka agreed, too eagerly for Barriss’ taste. 

“Ahsoka--” she glanced around at the other occupants of the communications center, who were doing a fairly convincing job of pretending she was not there, using official and _expensive_ communications to catch up with her best friend who just happened to also be an officer in the Grand Army of the Republic before her sixteenth life day. “I’m sorry--I’m sorry I couldn’t--I _tried_ …” She looked down, feeling shameful tears streaking down her face.

Like she was a child. 

“ _Force, Barriss_ , _it’s not your fault. It was Krell. If you---if you had been there, he would have_ killed _you. No one saw this coming. It’s_ not _your fault, you hear me?”_

Barriss closed her eyes and swallowed a sob. “Of course.” She straightened. “Of course, Ahsoka,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. “I know that.”

Somehow the Togruta’s eye roll was still discernible as a slight shift of two or three holographic polygons. “ _I still had to say it. I know you, Barriss. This_ wasn’t _your fault.”_

 _No, it wasn’t_ , she thought. It was--

“ _Krell’s.”_

_\--ours._

She blinked and looked up at Ahsoka, who did not seem to have noticed anything was amiss.

 _Ours. It’s our fault. The clones, the Umbaran farmers, even Krell._ Our _fault._ Our _war._

Ahsoka looked over her shoulder, and Barriss felt her eyes drawn to the sleek, predatory profile of her best friend, feeling a soft sense of comfort in the familiar features, despite the strangeness of this communication system. Subconsciously, her gaze followed these familiar details, filling the cubes with her memories: Ahsoka’s montrals were taller now, her shoulders a little broader, her wiry frame beginning to fill out, and her lekku were longer too, the ivory and steel-blue standing out against her crimson top, gently curving at her collarbo--

_Padawan Offee!_

“ _I guess I have to wrap this up,_ ” Ahsoka said, sounding weary and worried. All of a sudden, she looked so young. “ _But I had to check on you. You’re--you’re important to me. When I thought you were hurt--”_

“I-I understand, Ahsoka,” Barriss said, forcing a smile through the sharp pinch of embarrassment. “And I feel the same way.” 

She hoped the warm flush on her face wasn't visible through her bandages and bruises, but along with this, she also felt a small bubble of warmth swell in her chest at their mutual feelings for one another. It was a gift Barriss couldn’t entirely comprehend at the moment, but knowing her dear friend was just as worried for her as she had been gave her great comfort.

“ _Look after her, you hear me, Rex?_ ”

“You’ve got it, sir,” the clone replied instantly. 

“ _I’ll see you soon, I promise. Anakin says this was a_ big _victory - the war could be over sooner than we thought, even!”_

“I hope so,” Barriss said, so quietly that she was not entirely sure that the receiver had picked up her voice. “See you soon,” she added. 

There were so many other things she wanted to say, but the words fled her grasp, slipping through her fingers like so much water in a flowing stream. 

When she looked up again, Ahsoka was gone. 

“Are you alright, Commander?”

Barriss started slightly. “Yes, Rex I’m--I’m fine. Thank you. I needed this.”

The clone stared back at her, deadpan. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you are talking about, Sir. But I am glad that giving your status report was a soothing experience, regardless.”

Barriss couldn’t help but smile a bit, despite it all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it was a bit of a wait for this one, but hopefully the ending made the rest of it worth the wait (or the earlier bits, depending on your tastes and feelings towards Space Horror). 
> 
> Please feel free to leave comments! In addition to feeding our egos, it also gives us a feel for how our writing is landing. 
> 
> I had to pick a clone for that interlude, and Jesse felt like the right fit. Especially given the series finale *sobs*


End file.
